Gayle Forman Quotes

When you make such a large withdrawal of happiness, somewhere you'll have to make an equally large deposit. It all goes back to the universal law of equilibrium.

She didn't tell me that she found life to be so unbearably painful. I mean, I didn't even have a clue. A kind of laugh escapes, and I know that if I'm not very careful, what follows will be something I don't want to hear, that no one wants to hear. How can you not know that about your best friend? Even if she doesn't tell you, how can you not know? How can you believe someone to be beautiful and amazing and just about the most magical person you've ever known, when it turns out she was in such pain that she had to drink poison that robbed her cells of oxygen until her heart had no choice but to stop beating? So don't ask me about Meg. Because I don't know shit.

After graduation, I wanted to work for 'Sassy', which I loved, but it had folded. So I wound up at 'Seventeen' for three years on staff and two as a contributor, and I wrote these great stories that nobody ever believes 'Seventeen' does. Serious stories for teens about social justice issues - gun control, migrant farm workers.

I'm not sure this is a world I belong in anymore. I'm not sure that I want to wake up.

Anything can happen in one day.

Because for that day, I really did become Lulu. Maybe not from the film or the real Louise Brooks, but my own idea of what Lulu represented. Freedom. Daring. Adventure. Saying yes.

I am running the show. Everyone is waiting for me. I decide. I know this now.

She's running the show. Maybe she's just biding her time. So you talk to her. You tell her to take all the time she needs, but to come back.

But then one time, you track down an email address and you're near a computer with Internet access so you don't have that nice cushion and you type what you're feeling and press send before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it. And then you wait, and wait, and wait, and nothing comes back, so all those things you thought were so important to say, really, they weren't. They weren't worth saying at all.

Next time I get sick, you can tell that to me. You can be my girl in the mountains."
"Okay", I say."I'll be your mountain girl and take care of you.

I'm the one shot, the heir and the spare, so you have to make damn sure your one investment pays off because there's no backup.

I don't want to lose you because of the f**ked-up way I found you.

Do you ever think what might've happened if they weren't so damn impatient? If Romeo had stopped for a second and gotten a doctor, or waited for Juliet to wake up? Not jumped to conclusions and gone and poisoned himself thinking she was dead when she was just sleeping? I've seen that movie so many times, and every damn time, it's like screaming at the girl in the horror movie. Don't go in the basement. The killer's down there. With Romeo and Juliet, I yell, 'Don't jump to conclusions.' But do those fools ever listen to me? I always imagine what might've happened if they'd waited. Juliet would've woken up. They'd already be married. They might've moved away, far away from the Montagues and the Capulets, gotten themselves a cute castle of their own. Decorated it up nice. Maybe it would've been like The Winter's Tale. By thinking Hermione was dead, Leontes had time to stop acting like a fool and then later he was so happy to find out she was alive. Maybe the Montagues and the Capulets would find out later that their beloved kids weren't dead, and wasn't it stupid to feud, and everyone would be happy. Maybe it would've turned the whole tragedy into a comedy.

It's like you're averse to adventure.

We went to church sometimes, so it's not like Mom had anything against religion, but Kerry totally did and Mom was ferociously protective of the people she loved, so much that she took insults up them personally.

Do you really think that if you don't mention my family I'll forget them?

In order that people who suffer from depression seek treatment without a second thought, the stigmas must further fall until we reach a point in time when that person with leukemia and that person with depression both receive the same level of sympathy and the same level of rigorous treatment. Both people deserve it.

You're a total freak. But you're my freak.

Adam had chosen me, and this I didn't understand. Why had he fallen for me? It didn't make sense.

I don't know if once you die you remember things that happened to you when you were alive. It makes a certain logical sense that you wouldn't. That being dead will feel like before you were born, which is to say, a whole lot of nothingness.

Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn't even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself. But if you keep waiting for the doors to be opened for you ... I think you'll have a hard time finding single happiness, let alone that double portion.

They say that things happen for a reason, but I don't know that I buy that. I don't know that I'll ever see a reason for what happened to Kat, Denny, and Teddy that day.

She wears the braid every day and always, by lunchtime, the curls and ringlets of her thick mane have managed to escape in rebellious little tendrils. But she refuses to surrender to that hair of hers, and every morning, it goes back into the braid.

Adam lay perfectly still, little groans escaping from his lips. I looked at the bow, looked at my hands, looked at Adam's face and felt this surge of love, lust, and an unfamiliar feeling of power.

Because that day with Willem, I may have pretended to be someone named Lulu, but I had never been more honest in my life.
Maybe that's the thing with liberation. It comes at a price.

Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.

He looks at one of the pictures for a long time. Then he looks at me. "I'll keep you up here." He taps his temple. "Where you can't get lost.

Maybe he was overwhelmed, like I am overwhelmed, by that mysterious intersection where love meets luck, where fate meets will. Because he'd been waiting for her. And there she was.

Of all the things and people she missed lately, it was odd to find herself at the top of the list.

When Bryn said that, uttered out loud the thing that to my never-ending shame I sometimes felt, I'd fallen in love with her a little bit. And I'd thought that was enough. That this implicit understanding and those first stirrings would bloom until my feelings for Bryn were as consuming as my love for Mia had once been.

After that, I became kind of fascinated by her and by what I guessed was her ability to hear music in the silence. Back then, I'd wanted to be able to do that, too. So I took to watching her play, and though I told myself the reason for my attention was because she was as dedicated a musician as I was and that she was cute, the truth was that I also wanted to understand what she heard in the silence.

But after shows, I craved connection. I craved skin-the taste of another woman's sweat. If it couldn't be hers, well, then anyone's would do ... for a few hours.

It's not that people like sad movies that make us feel like, "Oh, my god, what a bummer." We like emotionally moving experiences, where you feel like a slightly different person and you see the world a little different, after you finish. It lets you see your own life, in a different way, and it actually makes you feel really good. And even though there might be sad content making this happen, the feeling that you're left with is one that is quite good, quite hopeful, clarifying and uplifting.

I think maybe traveling is like a talent, like whistling or dancing. And some people have it
you seem to.

There are so many ways to live, to define what living means for you and you alone. We are so narrow in our thinking, and once you understand that, once you decide to not abide by these artificial constraints, anything is possible and you are so liberated

Sophie wondered when was she going to learn that lots of things seem like a good idea but a small amount of analysis might uncover that such seemingly good ideas are, in fact, intrinsically faulty.

But the memories ... one pops up, I push it away and then another appears.

More and more lately it seems as though the majority of my conversations are with myself.

Where? I couldn't find anything on Meg's computer. I found the new email address All_BS

Adam's lips are set in a grime line. I can't tell if he's about to cry or about to punch the guard. For his sake, I hope it's the former. For you own, I hope the latter.

Yeah, but some things you can't control, no matter how hard you try.

Willem holds my wrist for a long moment, looking at that birthmark. Then he lifts it to his mouth. And though his lips are soft and his kiss is gentle, it feels like a knife jamming into the electrical socket. It feels like the moment when I go live

The little things that happen. Sometimes they're insignificant; other times, they change everything.

Backstage, Willem is thinking about accidents again. And things that seemingly don't make sense, except they do. Like right out there in the fifth row. All of them, together. That makes sense.

I think you're the sort of person who finds money on the ground and waves it in the air and asks if anyone has lost it. I think you cry in movies that aren't even sad because you have a soft heart, though you don't let it show. I think you do things that scare you, and that makes you braver than those adrenaline junkies who bungee-jump off bridges.

People have told me that they cannot put down 'If I Stay' after reading it, and readers have become very invested in the love story between Adam and Mia.

You crossed the water, left me ashore
It killed me enough, but you wanted more
You blew up the bridge, a mad terrorist
Waved from your side, through me a kiss
I started to follow but realized too late
There was nothing but air underneath my feet"
- from the song "Bridge" on the Collateral Damage album

Even if you find him. Even if he didn't leave you on purpose, he can't possibly live up to the person you've built him into."

It's not like the thought hasn't occurred to me. I get that the chances of finding him are small, but the chances of finding him as I remember him are even smaller. But I just keep going back to what my dad always says, about how when you lose something, you have to visualize the last place you had it. And I found―and then lost―so many things in Paris.

And now I am here, as alone as I've ever been. I am seventeen years old. This is not how it's suppose to be. This is not how my life is suppose to turn out.

My first YA novel, not many people have read. It's a fickle business. There's a degree of timing and luck involved.

But it was such a calming silence; it made me relax and feel closer to him than any heart-to-heart would have.

Suddenly, it's all too much. Bryn and the bump watch. Vanessa with my high school yearbook. The idea that nothing's sacred. Everything's fodder. That my life belongs to anyone but me.

I needed to be somewhere where people wouldn't be sad, where the thoughts concerned life, not death.

He talks about despair, how it thrives in silence.

And her voice, it's exactly the same. I don't know why I'd expect it to be different except that everything's different now.

The clothes are packed off to Goodwill
I said my good-byes up on the hill
The house is empty, the furniture sold
Soon your smell will decay to mold
Don't know why I bother calling, ain't nobody answering
Don't know why I bother singing, ain't nobody listening
"Disconnect"
Collateral Damage, Track 10

Fake it till you make it actually worked.

But I also know that sometimes Adam needs to do things the dramatic way. He is fond of the Grand Gesture

I've always known where to find you, Cody.

But in my family, playing music was still more important than the type of music you played, so when after a few months it became clear that my love for the cello was no passing crush, my parents rented me one so I could practice at home. Rusty scales and triads

But you could've at least told me. Instead of dropping me like a one night stand, you could've had the decency to break up with me instead of leaving me wondering for years ...

First you inspect me Then you dissect me Then you reject me I wait for the day That you'll resurrect me Animate

You were so busy trying to be my savior that you left me all alone.

I've found that the most engaging and satisfying author events I've done are with other people, where the conversation is spontaneous. I think that is by far the better way to introduce and promote a book.

Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind.

I have nothing but time in my life, but never enough of it when I need it.

want you to get on with your life.

I think I'll try the cinnamon-spice chai latte, she said, giving me a stern look that said, I will not be ashamed of my beverage selection.

Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through. I don't know when exactly I started giving myself this daily pep talk - or why.

If I stay

Life is more than just a game.

I've learnt that fun is not the same

When faced with such a thorny choice,

I close my eyes and hear a voice…

It tells me what to do and say

When to go and when to stay.

When it's time to run away,

But it won't tell me this.

But still why me? I ask you why?

Why must I choose to live or die?

To this I can't turn a blind eye;

I've done that far too much.

So many reasons say 'don't go'

I'd want to stay but I don't know

When love itself is lost from earth

Should I still walk on it's soft hearth?

Is there yet a space for me?

Is there still someone I might be?

Can I stay here on my own?

Can I face the world alone?

Some say dying is just a step,

That life is one and this the next,

But can I watch life blow away?

And what will happen

If I stay?

And I realize that before there's a next, there's a now that needs attending to.

That's when I figured out the ugly secret of a mother's love: you protect them to protect yourself.

Are you happy in your misery? Resting peaceful in desolation? It's the final tie that binds us The sole source of my consolation" "blue

Why wasn't I nicer to Alice? When she has been nothing but sweet to me? When I actually like her? I know I should say something to her, but before I can find the words, she's tooting her horn and disappearing down the street.
I wave until she turns the corner. And as I watch another person drive out of here to some better place, I understand exactly why I wasn't nicer.

I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears.

Willem, I suspect deep down you know exactly why you're here, exactly what you want, but you're unwilling to the wanting, let alone the having. Because both of those propositions are terrifying.

I know that unlike that night, tonight I won't kiss her. Or touch her. Or even see her up close.
Tonight, I'll listen. And that'll be enough.

I like to relate to my kids as they are. I enjoy spending that time with them. I see that my girls are so completely different and different from me, too.

And it took me by surprise how much I wanted to be kissed by him, to realize that I'd thought about it so often that I'd memorized the exact shape of his lips, that I'd imagined running my finger down the cleft of his chin.

I've never toughened up enough to handle what I'd have to handle if I were to stay.

beshert. Meant to be.

When the sun shines, you let it shine on you

All I wanted was for you to be okay. All I wanted was to help you. I would've done anything."
She drops her chin to her chest. "Yes, I know. You wanted to rescue me."
"Damn, Mia. You say that like it's a bad thing.

Because I understand all the ways of trying to escape, how sometimes you escape one prison only to find you've built yourself a different one.

Kerry was walking with Jesus now. I could see my mom getting red when he said that, and I started to get a little worried that she might say something. We went to church sometimes, so it's not like Mom had anything against religion, but Kerry totally did and Mom was ferociously protective of the people she loved, so much that she took insults upon them personally. Her friends sometimes called her Mama Bear for this reason.

My gaze returns to earth and when it does, it's her eyes I see. Not the way I used to see them - around every corner, behind my own closed lids at the start of each day. Not in the way I used to imagine them in the eyes of every other girl I laid on top of. No, this time it really is her eyes. A photo of her, dressed in black, a cello leaning against one shoulder like a tired child. Her hair is up in one of those buns that seem to be a requisite for classical musicians. She used to wear it up like that for recitals and chamber music concerts, but with little pieces hanging down, to soften the severity of the look. There are no tendrils in this photo. I peer closer at the sign. YOUNG CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS MIA HALL.

I shouldn't have let you go. I should've said something yesterday, but it was intense for me, too, and you scared me, Cody. You scare me a lot."
"That's because you're a city dick," I reply. "City dicks are always scared."
"So I've been told."
"Well, you scare me, too", I say.

I just want out. Out of my existence. I find myself wishing that a lot lately. Not to be dead. Or kill myself. Or any of that kind of stupid shit. It's more I can't help think what if I hadn't been born in the first place ...

Ride of the Valkyries

You need people who will give you the food from their plate because they feel your hunger, who will refuse to let you wander off alone no matter how many times you say it's all good.

Look I accept Adam because you love him. And I assume he accepts me because you love me ... your love binds us.' ... The funny thing was, I never really bought into Kim's notion that they were somehow bound together through me- until just now when I saw her half carrying him down the hospital corridor.

Concert' doesn't mean standing up like a target in front of thousands of strangers. It means coming together. It means harmony.

She felt almost tearfully grateful to be off the hook, and residually angry because she was always on the hook.

I'm pretty sure that when babies are born in Oregon, they leave the hospital with birth certificates - and teeny-tiny sleeping bags. Everyone in the state camps. The hippies and the rednecks. The hunters and the tree huggers. Rich people. Poor people. Even rock musicians. Especially rock musicians. Our band had perfected the art of punk-rock camping, throwing a bunch of crap into the van with, like, an hour's notice and just driving out into the mountains, where we'd drink beer, burn food, jam on our instruments around the campfire, and sack out under the open sky. Sometimes, on tour, back in the early hardscrabble days, we'd even camp as an alternative to crashing in another crowded, roach-infested rock 'n' roll house.
I don't know if it's because no matter where you live, the wilderness is never that far off, but it just seemed like everyone in Oregon camped.

Karma's not like a bank. Make a deposit, take a withdrawal. But more and more, I am starting to suspect that all this is payback for something - only not the good kind.

You?' is all I can manage to choke out.
'Always me,' she replies softly, bashfully. 'Who else?

I have a feeling that once you live through something like this, you become a little bit invincible.

I'll be your mess, you be mine
That was the deal that we had signed
I bought a hazmat suit to clean up your waste
Gas masks, gloves, to keep us safe
But now I'm alone in an empty room
Staring down immaculate doom
Messy

We tell our secrets to the dark.

Amazing things happen when you stop hiding behind that hulking beast.