Jennifer Niven Quotes

If only world leaders would get laid well and regularly, the world's problems might disappear.

The light catches his wild, wild hair and holds it. And wham! Suddenly. Just like that. I'm completely conscious of his guyness next to me. His long legs. The way he walks, fluid, easy, like he's made to walk through water But at the same time with purpose, which makes him seem taller than he is. There aren't a lot of guys my age who walk like this. With swagger. It's as if I've suddenly discovered he's male. My face is hot and my back is damp and I'm thinking about Pauline Potter, sexing off all that weight, and I'm staring at his hands...

Can you tell me what happened, Libbs? Can you tell me what has you so panicked?"

"All of it." That was my answer, even though I knew my dad was expecting something more specific. "Everything. It was you. Me. Aneurysms. Death. Cancer. Murder. Crime. Mean people. Rotten people. Two-faced people. Bullies. Natural disasters. The world has me panicked. The world did this. Especially the way it gives you people to love and then takes them away." But the answer was actually simple. I had decided to be afraid.

Never bullshit a bullshiter

All you have to do is today

Sometimes in the darkest places, we find the brightest light.

I wish my heart wouldn't beat so fast.

When I thought about people, I always pictured them the way they looked when they didn't know anyone was watching them. Johnny Clay had a grin that meant wickedness. Sweet Fern frowned in a way that meant she didn't approve of things. Granny's eyes always danced like she was thinking up mischief. Daddy Hoyt was peaceful. Ruby Poole sparkled like a firecracker. Linc looked serious as an undertaker. Beachard's eyes were far away as the moon. Mama had been sunshine. Our daddy's face was always changing, just like Harley Bright's. But Duke wore a sad face, even when he smiled.

Overdrive for a girl I barely know, all because she's the first person I've met who seems to speak my language. A few words of it anyway.

People either see me or they don't.

One year later, I grew out of my clothes because, it turns out, growing fourteen inches in a summer is easy. It's growing out of a label that's hard. Which

I've learned the hard way that the best thing to do is say nothing about what you're really thinking. If you say nothing, they'll assume you're thinking nothing, only what you let them see.

I learned that there is good in this world, if you look hard enough for it. I learned that not everyone is disappointing, including me, and that a 1,257-foot bump in the ground can feel higher than a bell tower if you're standing next to the right person.

Me: How can I want you then when I don't want you now?

I didn't know that my life forever changing would be because you loved me and then left, and in such a final way.

Before I die I want to __________.

Can go downstairs right now and let my mom know how I'm feeling - if she's even home - but she'll tell me to help myself to the Advil in her purse and that I need to relax and stop getting myself worked up, because in this house there's no such thing as being sick unless you can measure it with a thermometer under the tongue. Things fall into categories of black and white - bad mood, bad temper, loses control, feels sad, feels blue.

Everyone in my life is a stranger, and that includes me.

People are shitty for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they're just shitty people. Sometimes people have been shitty to them and, even though they don't realize it, they take that shitty upbringing and go out into the world and treat others the same way. Sometimes they're shitty because they're afraid. Sometimes they choose to be shitty to others before others can be shitty to them. So it's like self-defensive shittiness.

You make me love you,
And that could be the greatest thing my heart was ever fit to do ...

You are driving me crazy. You have been driving me crazy for weeks.

Because in this house there's no such thing as being sick unless you can measure it with a thermometer

I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Some lipstick would go with this truck, I thought.

If you walk away, don't come back. You don't get to do that and come back.

Did you kids have fun?" she asks, and we know she's hoping we'll beg for permission to never go there again. Decca

Because I'm sitting next to you on this swing and you're beautiful

The great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody.

Guys like Ryan Cross have a way of reminding you who you are, even when you don't want to remember.

For the most part, the people are the same. Everyone wants something to believe in. Everyone wants someone to love.

If there was one thing I'd learned, it was that you were responsible for your own ship. You had to look after the engine and make sure the plane was in order and ready to be flown. You were in charge of plotting your course. When you were in the pilot's seat, it was your hand on the throttle, no one else's. If your oil ran out or you lost your engine or the engine caught fire and you had to crash, you were the one saving yourself. No one else could do it for you.

Just promise me you won't be one of those couples that stays together for the children, That only screws people up, including the children.

He writes Before I die I want to and draws a line. He writes it again. Then he writes it a dozen more times. After we fill these up, we can keep going on the front of the building and down the other side. It's a good way to figure out just why we're here.

I'm five minutes late to Russian literature, where Mrs. Mahone and her wig assign us a ten-page paper on The Brothers Karamazov.

He smiles at me, and for the first time I notice how blue his eyes are- like, bright-shy blue.

You deserve better. I can't promise you I'll stay around, not because I don't want to. It's hard to explain. I'm a fuckup. I'm broken, and no one can fix it. I've tried. I'm still trying. I can't love anyone because it's not fair to anyone who loves me back. I'll never hurt you, not like I want to hurt Roamer. But I can't promise I won't pick you apart, piece by piece, until you're in a thousand pieces, just like me. You should know what you're getting into before getting involved.

me - everything might just explode. I keep my eyes on the road. "You know what I like about you, Ultraviolet Remarkey-able? Everything." "But I thought you didn't like me." And then I look at her. She raises an eyebrow at me. I

Too much of my life feels like this already- trying to recycle something old into something new and better, disguising someone else's trash as some fresh, shiny thing.

The Slow Club is playing,a band I like,all plucky and bitter-sweet and kind of offbeat.Like Finch,I think.Like us.

When we're in the act of wandering, we need to be present, not watching though a lens.

Sometimes all I did all day was just wander around in my mind.

The thing I need most in this world is a long, hot shower, but what I get instead is a trickle of warm water followed by a blast of Icelandic cold

Finch scribbles something and slaps it to the wall. Welcome. He scribbles something else. Freak. He shows it to me before destroying it. He writes Belong, which goes on the wall, and Label, which doesn't. Warmth, Saturday, Wander, You, Best friend go up, while Cold, Sunday, Stand still, Everyone else go into the heap.

My body is like a single nerve ending from head to toe. Everything feels alive and more. My heart is opening, like the heart of Rappaccini's daughter, Beatrice, when she meets young Giovanni after he wanders into her garden. As I stand there, I can almost feel it unfold, petal by petal, beat by beat.

Me: It's late.
Finch: That depends on who you ask. See, I don't necessarily think it's late. I think early. Early in our lives. Early in the night. Early in the new year. If you're counting, you'll notice the earlys outnumber the lates.

She is oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. The same elements that are inside the rest of us, but I can't help thinking that she's more than that and she's got other elements going on that no one's ever heard of, ones that make her stand apart from everyone else.

The thing is, they were all perfect days.

In those moments, none of it matters. It's like that stuff is happening to someone else because all you feel is dark inside, and that darkness just kind of takes over. You don't even really think about what might happen to the people you leave behind, because all you can think about is yourself.

Except that only small people- the inside-small kind- don't like you to be big.

At times such as this, it becomes more important for art to survive.

If he really loves you, he'll find a way.

It's at that moment that I can't help myself,even though she maybe hates me right now.I pull her in and kiss her the way I've always wanted to kiss her,a lot more R-rated and PG-13.I can feel her tense at first,not wanting to kiss me back ,and the thought of it breaks my heart.Before I can pull away,I feel her bend and then melt into me as I melt into her under the warm Indiana sun.And she's still here ,and she isn't going anywhere,and it will be okay.

She and I have gotten to be kind of friendly, and that's making me very, very happy. Like stupidly happy. Like so-happy-my-friends-can't-stand-to-be-around-me happy.

Will you want me just as much when I'm fifteen feet nine inches?

For some reason, I don't like the way this sounds, as if a universe could exist in which I wouldn't know Finch.

So what makes you angry?`
`Stupid people. Fake people. Mean people. Death. I worry about dying all the time. Like, all the time.

I think what an amazing world this would be if we all danced everywhere we went.

But it was a damn good smile. A genuine one, which is hard to come by these days." -Finch

You don't know how it is. It's like I've got this angry little person inside me, and I can feel him trying to get out. He's running out of room because he's growing bigger and bigger, and so he starts rising up, into my lungs, chest, throat, and I just push him right back down. I don't want him to come out. I can't let him out because i hate him, because he's not me, but he's in there and he won't leave me alone, and all I can think is that I want to go up to someone, anyone, and just knock them into space because I'm angry at all of them.

Believe it or not, it's actually beautiful to some people.

You're probably better at math than I am, because pretty much everyone's better at math than I am, but it's okay, I'm fine with it. See, I excel at other, more important things - guitar, sex, and consistently disappointing my dad, to name a few.

They are strong and brave and caring, and even though I know they must cry and get angry and maybe even throw things when they're alone, they rarely show it to me. Instead, they encourage me to get out of the house and into the car and back on the road, so to speak. They listen and ask and worry, and they're there for me. If anything, they're a little too there for me now. They need to know where I'm going, what I'm doing, who I'm seeing, and when I'll be back. Text us on the way there, text us on your way home.

I try to tell it he might have meant "Just be careful when you have sex. Use a condom," but instead, because, you know, it's a brain, and therefore has - is - a mind of its own, it starts thinking of every way in which Violet Markey might break my heart. I

I'd rather be judged on what I can do instead of who I'm not.

I think of something my mom used to say, about how as scary as it is to go after dreams, it's even scarier not to.

Before I die I want to count for something. Be the person I'm meant to be and have that be enough. Know what it's like to have a best friend. Matter.

The happy times went away for a while, but they're coming back

Even when we weren't wandering, even from the floor of your closet, you showed the world to me.

What were you doing up on that ledge?" It comes out a whisper.

"The same thing you were. I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to imagine jumping off it. I wanted to leave all the shit behind. But when I did start to imagine it, I didn't like what it looked like. And then I saw you.

I'm trying out Theodore Finche, '80s kid, and seeing how he fits.
I fish through my desk for a cigarette, stick it in my mouth, and remember as I'm reaching for my lighter that Theodore Finch, '80s kid, doesn't smoke. God, I hate him, the clean-cut, eager little prick.

We're all weird and damaged in our own way. You're not the only one.

I like to think that the colors and sounds and words have nothing to do with him, that they're all me and my own brilliant, complicated, buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, godlike brain" -Finch

It's the kind of smile you smile when you're thinking someone over and trying to decide how you feel about them.

It's okay to laugh, you know. The earth's not going to split open. You're not going to hell. Believe me. If there's a hell, I'll be there ahead of you, and they'll be too busy with me to even check you in.

In 1912, a man named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing a parachute suit he designed himself. He jumped to test his invention
he expected to fly
but instead he fell straight down, hitting the ground like a meteor and leaving a 5.9-inch-deep crater from the impact. Did he mean to kill himself? Doubtful. I think he was just cocky, and also stupid.

I say, "I love you."

She says, "I love you too." And then she laughs. "It's kind of crazy. I mean you."

"I know. What the hell?"

She covers her mouth with one hand, but her eyes are shining. I'm thinking about a field of grass on a summer day. I'm thinking about the sun and being warmed from the inside and warmed from the outside.

I take her hand under the gray-blue sky and I'm home.

All this time, I thought it was her weight that made me see her.

But it's not her weight at all.

It's her.

Theodore Finch - I was alive.I burned brightly.And then I died,but not really.Because someone like me cannot,will not,die like everyone else.I linger like the legends of the Blue Hole.I will always be here,in the offerings and people I left behind.

The air is full of things we aren't saying, and I wonder if he feels it too.

If I keep ahead of everything, and that includes me, I should be able to stay awake and here, and not just semi-here but here as in present as in now.

If I was designing a home for Libby Strout, it would be exceptional. It would be one of a kind. It would be bright red with a tin roof, at least two stories, possibly more, a state-of-the-art art weather station, and lots of turrets. Also a tower, but not one to lock her in. It would be a place where she could sit and look out over and beyond the town, as far as the horizon, maybe even past it.

Love is truly the great manifesto; the urge to be, to count for something, and, if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclamation - in short, to remain a memory.

I'm not a shitty person, but I'm about to do a shitty thing. and you will hate me, and some other people will hate me, but I'm going to do it anyway to protect you and also myself.

Because we all have to die someday. I just want to be prepared.

In case you haven't noticed, we're already involved, Finch. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm broken too.

These kids who never did anything to anyone except be born with different brains and different wiring,

I turn to Libby. "You're kind. Probably the kindest person I know. You're also forgiving, at least a little, but I'm hoping a lot, and in my book that's a superpower." Her eyes are on mine, and there's a lot going on there. "You're smart as hell, and you don't take people's crap, least of all mine. You are who you are. You know who that is, and you aren't afraid of it, and how many of us can say that." She's not smiling, but it's not about what her mouth is doing. It's about her eyes. "You're strong too. It's not just a matter of being able to knock down a guy with a single shot to the jaw." (Everyone laughs, except her.) "I'm talking about inner strength. Like, if I would draw that inner strength it might look a lot like a triangle made of carbyne. That's the world's strongest material. You also make things better for people around you...

No one can lock you back in, Libby. You choose whether you let them.

I remember being so full of pain and anger that I wished nothing but tongue-burning on everyone who hurt me, especially Moses Hunt. But here's the thing- Merricat poisoned her entire family. The only crime I committed was being fat.

Violet Markey, I'd like to be your partner on this project.

It's true, after all, at least compared to him, and actually what he means is that I have bad luck with women. Something about going for the bitchy ones or the crazy ones or the ones who pretend not to know me when other people are around.

Better to keep the unhappy, mad, bad, unpleasant words separate, where you can watch them and make sure they don't surprise you when you're not expecting them

Who cares for Algebra?
Who delights in solving math?
I only want to live my life
Along the creative path.

I remember him standing next to me at Hoosier Hill, smiling out at the ugly trees and the ugly farmland and the ugly kids as if he could see Oz. 'Believe it or not, it's actually beautiful to some people..' So I decide to see it through his eyes.

I've always been different, but to me different is normal. i decide on a version of the truth.

I thought I could wait, but I can't. Sorry.

I want to say It's okay to be a person. We're all afraid. We all get hurt. It's okay to hurt. You'd be so much more likable if you just acted human.

Along those lines, accept any and all thoughts (don't be afraid of them no matter what they are).

By the way? For what it's worth, you showed me something, Ultraviolet - there is such a thing as a Ariana Grande day.

This is what happens when people die. They start to disappear if you don't watch it. Not all at once, but a piece here, a piece there.

I'm still here, and I'm grateful, because otherwise I would be missing this. Sometimes it's good to be awake.