Ellen Hopkins Quotes

Never say never, dear.
You might be surprised at what you can do, should circumstances dictate

Eyes closed, we can/be anywhere. Italy. France. Australia./Jupiter. Hell. Doesn't matter, as long/as we're not here. As long as we can pretend we're still pretty.

Nobody seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize.

You come home, and everyone talks at once and everyone asks questions, but no one waits for the answers.Instead they talk about themselves, what they've been up to, what they're going to do next, as if you're a photo on the wall.And then they talk to one another, forgetting you've jsut flown in, forgetting you're in the backseat, forgetting they've already said it all.

But calories won't conquer me. They are one thing I can control

I love you so much when i see you i get butterflies

Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die.

The memory stirs sadness. It scatters around me like dust.

God wasn't love, couldn't be love. Because for me, love was a corpse.

BEAUTIFUL is stark, disquieting and, quite simply, riveting. Amy Reed is an author to keep on your radar.

Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.

How far we claim to have come - accepting all men as created equal. Gender being the requisite qualifier, as women are not reviewed in the same fashion - their fashion hopefully better suited to the bedroom than the boardroom. And, you know, homosexuals not really being 'men,' cannot be judged equivalent to their stiffer-wristed brethren. On religion, well, some Christians are willing to make room for a Jew or two in their inner circles. But Mecca-facing prayer must be met with flaming crosses. Close your eyes to the details, the big picture can still be viewed through rose-colored glass. But go any distance beyond the rhetoric, truth becomes a shadowed lens.

There is only Bree.

Don't make me laugh, I'd much rather cry.

Real love finds you once, if you're lucky.

I'd like to cry now. Don't know how.

Flying Is that what it's like when you die? Do you slip out of your skin, go soaring up into a butterscotch sky? Do you surf waves of light? How far? How high? I hope that's what it's like, but I'm afraid it's a lot more like falling with no net to catch you, and no way of knowing how hard you will hit or where you'll stop. Will you touch down back on Earth, or will you land in the nightmare you always feared you'd never wake up from?

Funny how when your life is mostly bullshit, you turn off feeling.
Sometimes it's hard to turn it back on again.

I hear. Nobody thinks so. But I do. Sometimes people whisper. Sometimes they yell. Sometimes they say mean things. I see more than the TV. It's my friend. I don't have any others, like the kids on Barney do. Why are people afraid of me? I don't want to hurt them. I taste only the sweet air, whooshed through tubes to help me breathe. If I'm lucky a bit of flavor comes with the wind or skin or clothes I smell. I wish my mouth would let me tell Mama I love her. Let me tell Daddy I ms him. Let me tell Shane how good I feel when I see him happy with Alex. I like when I swim because when I float, I am free. I like when I sleep because I dance when I dream. I hear, I see, I taste, I smell, I feel, I dream.

Mistakes are easy to come by. Why make the same one twice?

I'm okay. Except..." God! "I totally want you.

As long as I could forever stay his little princess.

Learning by example is valid, but when you have the information to know that turning in a certain direction can lead you to a very wrong place, most of the "blame" is on the individual.

Girls are impossible to satisfy." "Not every girl." Not me. I'd be happy if he'd just like me a little.

Faces

...I
...don't
...know
...the real
...me

In my limited realm of experience, beginnings led to endings.

One Time, One Day
between Davie and Roberta ,
I asked my mom why she persisted,
kept on having baby after baby,
She looked
at me, at a spot between my eyes,
blinking like I had suddenly fallen
crazy. She paused before answering
as if
to confide would legitimize my fears.
She drew a deep breath, leaned against
the chair. I touched her hand and I thought
she might
cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms
Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role.
I decided if it was my role, I'd rather
disappear.

Clear. Cold. Empty. Like how I feel right now. Love is strange. One minute you're jungle fever. The next you're Artic winter.

vague as a soft copper pulse of moonlight through blossoming sea coast fog.

I wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?

I wanted to meet the monster.
Why go down if you can go up?

This is unstoppable, no holds barred. This is beautiful. Crazy. A beginning. Betrayal. Addictive. Aggressive. Alive. This is something to be afraid of.

Girls get Screwed. Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things. The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feel cheap for doing exactly what they beg for

Aunt Cora says it's my aura. I see them, you know. Yours is dark. Sort of like black coffee, although it fluctuates. Sometimes there are little flecks of gold. If you could make those coalesce, turn your aura more toffee than coffee, things would be different.

The only thing about myself I know for sure is that I don't know anything.

Red and raw like my brain, unable to shut down, thoughts crashing like electrons orbiting a nucleus of deuling emotions.

Am I more afraid Of taking a chance and learning I'm somebody I don't know, or of risking new territory, only to find I'm the same old me? There is comfort in the tried and true. Breaking ground might uncover a sinkhole, one impossible to climb out of. And setting sail in uncharted waters might mean capsizing into a sea monster's jaws. Easier to turn my back on these things than to try tjem and fail. And yet, a whisper insists I need to know if they are or aren't integral to me. Status quo is a swamp. And stagnation is slow death.

Love Is a curious thing. Sometimes it barrels into you, leaves you breathless. Other times, it comes in- to your life, a tentative beam of morning sun sneaking through the blinds, and you think this light isn't possible. The shutters are drawn. Night should linger on. I don't feel like waking. Yet the room comes slowly lit. Sleep slithers away, and at last you can no longer deny the dawning.

I swallow any sort of apology.
"screwing your neighbor."
There. Said it. React, okay?
pregnant pause becomes three
weeks overdue. Four weeks.
Time for a C-section. What?
Oh, Kaeleigh, I'm so sorry.
Are you sure ... ?

Pray you could somehow stop the uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain...

You share a toast with me:
Here's to seasonal
madness, part-time
relatives, and
substitutes for love.

Ask a soldier what he believes in. He'll tell you God. Country. The patient hands of death
the ones he's wearing.

Many readers share their stories with me and if one speaks to me (or if the same theme keeps coming at me), I will research it and decide if it would make a good book. But, straight down to it, people inspire me.

Tears impress no one. But, oh yeah, there's no one here to impress. So I go ahead and let tears fall. Rain. Storm. Flood. My pillow soaks with the salt of regret, and I rest my head against it ...

I locate the ladies' room. Luckily, it's empty, no one to see the vacant-eyed girl, staring in the mirror. Staring at a stranger who doesn't care if she dies. Maybe she wants to die. Who would care if I died? My face is hollow-cheeked, spiced with sores
the places where I stab at bugs. Tiny bugs, almost invisible, but irritating. Usually they come out at night, when I'm lying there, begging for sleep. I've been meaning to tell the manager that the apartment needs to be sprayed. Sprayed. Steam cleaned. Deodorized. My hair looks odd too. It used to be darker. Shinier. Prettier. Can hair lose color when you're only eighteen? What if I go all the way gray? Will Trey still love me? Will anyone? That is, if I fool them all and don't die.

Say a Hail Mary for me. I could use some forgiveness.

Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside that you didn't dare let them escape, in case they blew you wide open?

The way it's okay to gift their heart one day, a backhand the next... These things make me believe God's a man after all.

So you want to know all about me, Who
I am
What chance meeting of brush and canvas painted
the face
you see? what made me despise the girl
in the mirror
enough to transform her, turn her into a stranger,
only not.

If you worry about falling down, and never 'up,' the sky will remain forever out of reach.

I don't love him, & he definitely doesn't love me. Still, he semi-fills a gaping black hole inside me. That place wants love, maybe even needs love, but love is something Im pretty sure doesn't exist.

We used to do coke, till "Just Say No" put the stuff out of reach. Now it's crank. Meth. The monster. It's a bitch on the body, but damn do you fly.

You gotta be crazy to open your windows, invite the demons in.

Paradise A concept embraced by almost every culture. A land of peace and harmony. Some say it doesn't belong to the earth, that there is no Shangri-la, no utopian wilderness for the living.

I don't need more pain in my life. Why did I invite it in? Do I have to feel pain to believe I feel anything at all?

Cleansed, chlorinated to the point of chemical peel, sore muscles relieved, I felt almost human again. Tiptoe to my room, up a darkened hall, past closed doors, I wondered if I'd ever feel completely human again.

Because if there's one thing I've learned through all this, it's to have faith in love.

Spilling a Secret

What its size,
will have varying
consequences. It's not
possible to predict
what will happen
if you
open the gunnysack,
let the cat escape.
A liberated feline
might purr on your lap,
or it might scratch
your eyes out. You can't
tell
until you loosen the knot.
Do you chance losing
a friendship, if that
friend's well-being
will
only be preserved
by betraying sworn-to
silence trust? Once
the seam is ripped, can
it be
mended again?
And if that proves
impossible, will you be
okay
when it all falls to pieces?

The problem with falling in love is falling back out of it again, usually because you've fallen in love with a lie. That happens as often as not.

Harder yet to get back up without tripping and falling all over again.

Librarians were like guardian angels, with graying hair and beady eyes, magnified through reading glasses, and always read to recommend new literary windows to gaze through.

Not sure there's been a single day of my life when everything was totally fine. And now? The best I can say is once in a while I'm not somersaulting in chaos.

Some say death is a doorway,
belief the key. Others claim you only
have to stumble across the threshold
to glimpse a hundred billion universes
in the blink of single silver shard.

Might as Well Laugh ... remember ... when ... Life ... made ... sense

Standing Here My entire world far beneath my feet, I should be filled with pride. Instead, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of defeat. Suddenly it comes to me, toes tempted to test the ledge, that there is a way out of this. Clam surety flows through my veins, and as I turn to wave good-bye, I wonder if it will hurt or if a single person will cry at my funeral. I take a deep breath, a final taste of sweet mountain air. I conjure Leona, Emily. Move my feet closer. Closer There's Grandma One, Grandma Two, and their spouses, waiting for me. I see Dad. Cara. Mommy. I screw up my courage, step over

Kaeleigh, queen of passive, all the time saying no, but not strong enough to mean it.

And at some point I would like to talk my publisher into doing an anthology of my poetry alongside some teen readers' poetry. It would be fun, and really wonderful to get their stuff out there.

Why does time erode relationships? Is there a way to avoid its relentless lapping? Is any love strong enough to withstand the chipping away?

Smoke

You stand infront of me,
pretending to be solid,
but you are nothing more
than smoke and
mirors.
You said you'd never leave,
that you would care for us forever,
but now you claim you
cannot
stay?
That you've been called away.
When you go,
who will i turn to when it all
crashes down?
Tell
me who.
Then tell me,
how I can believe
anone again, if all your promises have been
lies.

Only you should decide for you what is perfect.

Defiance rose up like vomit. I swung back and yelled, Don't ever do that again!

Bad choices or good, if you never take chances, someone else will build your life for you.

He sucked the nectar from her heart like a famished butterfly.

Or might the soul clone itself,
create a perfect imitation
of something yet to be
defined? In this way,
can a reflection be altered?

I wonder if what I did made her hurt as much as she hurt me. Only fair, to trade hurt. But life isn't fair.

Perfection is a ridiculous goal because there is no such thing. Real beauty is what you are inside.

There are more imperfect diamonds than flawless stones.

The problems with lies is they start to pile up, one on top of another, until it's hard to find your way out from under the heap.

If you've never shot a gun,
You can't understand
how it feels in your hands.
Cool to the touch, all its venom
coiled inside, deadly,
like a steel-scaled serpent. Awaiting your bidding.
You select it's prey… paper,
tin, or flesh. You lie in wait,
learn that patience is the killer's
most trustworthy accomplice.
You choose the moment. What. Where. When. Decided.
But the how is everything.
You lift your weapon,
ease it into place, cock it,
to load it, knowing the
satisfying snitch means a bullet is yours to command.
Now, make or break,
it's all up to you. You
aim knowing a hair either
way means bull's-eye or miss.
Success or failure. Life or death.
You have to relax,
convince your muscles
not to be tense, not to betray
you. Sight again. Adjust.
Don't become distracted by the heat of the hunt.
Instincts take over.
You shoot and adrenaline
screams as your target shreds
or the flesh drops. And for
one indescribable moment you are God.

What I've learned is just how resilient love can be. You can beat it, pound it into pulp, but killing it is hard to do.

Communication
Was never big in my house.
We sat together over
dinner, but the only sound
you'd hear was crunching
and chewing and the little
ones asking for more, please.
We lived, all boxed up in
invisible containers. We
hardly knew the people
we called sister or father.
Jackie and I were the
exceptions to that rule.

Face red, but brave in spite of it, Ethan offered an even smaller box. My hands shook as i opened it.
Set in a gold promise ring, three small diamonds glittered. One for you, one for me, one for us, he said sweetly. I love you.

I write books for young adults because I truly connect with them on some very deep level. They are our hope, our future, and inspiring them to be the best they can be is very important to me.

You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.

God is an invention of mankind, an excuse to exist, and to thrive, in a subhuman state.

Silence is the first thing within the power of the enslaved to shatter. From that shattering, everything else spills forth.
Are you ready to shatter the silence?
Share your secrets.

Maybe the church was right.
Maybe I'm selfish.
Maybe I'm evil.
Maybe I'm damned.
I feel like I'm on a tight rope,
barely balancing. I know it's
a long way down and I'm
afraid I'm destined to crash.

Torch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.

Honesty.
Sobriety.
My virginity.
No way to regain
the first two, I almost
gave away the last.

I told her about the man, not my daddy, she said, He was only making you into a real girl. I didn't understand. But I made myself believe her. I was a real girl now. But what was I before?

She's incredible, not that she's perfect. But you once said imperfections create character.

Anger is easier than forgiveness.

When you eat your favorite food, 150 dopamine units are released. When you have sex, 200 dopamine units are released. But when you use methamphetamine, 1050 dopamine units are released - five times more dopamine than is released during sex. Even cocaine use only releases 340 units.

The truth is, I don't have a real clue what love is - how to find it, how to give it. Once upon a time I thought I knew.

I'll Stay

...leave
...me.
...I'll
...follow
...you.

Puzzle pieces don't always connect do they?

HAPPY EVER AFTER is a concept I'll never believe in. I would be content to sample some little taste of happiness today, tonight, right now. Though I know without a doubt that tomorrow will come saturated with pain. Life is like that. At least my life. And honestly, I cant think of anyone whose life is any different. The price tag for joy is misery. [ ... ]

Love is only found in books

I don't know
449
that much about the Bible, other than it was
written thousands of years ago, which dilutes
its relevance. However, I know its faithful
followers tend to cherry-pick verses to suit
their needs, the same way they cherry-pick
words or scenes from other books to label
obscene.

But Hey, Guess What
Crazy means I'm not liable
for my actions. So screw it,
I'll go home, propped up on
Prozac against distractions