Nicola Yoon Quotes

I am not a princess. And I don't need rescuing.

I am really not a girl to fall in love with. For one thing, I don't like temporary, nonprovable things, and romantic love is both temporary and nonprovable.

Maybe we can't predict the future, but we can predict some things.

Her pain is endless. It falls off the ends of the world.
Her pain is a dead sea.
Her pain is for me, but I cannot bear it anymore.

You can be cynical all you want, but many a life can be saved by poetry.

Wanting just leads to more wanting. There's no end to desire.

He was some exotic planet and I was his favorite satellite But he's no planet, just the final fading light of an already dead star.

He was going to get the American Dream that even Americans dream about.

When I first started with you I thought it was only a matter of time before depression would take you over. And there was that one summer when it came close, but it didn't happen. Every day you get up and learn something new. Every day you find something to be happy about. Every single day you have a smile for me.

I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: we change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we'd be immortal. But some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don't renew. They age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly's hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can't have both.

Maybe growing up is disappointing the people, who we love.

I've never understood the phrase they have chemistry before now. After all, everything is chemistry. Everything is combination and reaction. The atoms in by body align themselves with the atoms in his.

We think we want all the time in the world with the people we love, but maybe what we need is the opposite. Just a finite amount of time, so we still think the other person is interesting. Maybe we don't need acts two and three. Maybe love is best in act one.

All love ends," she says.
"Maybe," I say. "But it has to start somewhere.

One day I will write an ode about kissing. I will call it "Ode to a Kiss".

It will be epic.

You're afraid of becoming your dad. You don't want to choose the wrong thing, so you don't choose anything at all.

Love can kill you and I'd rather be alive than out there living.

People feel so much. Love is so big and it leaves behind a crater. Even when it's wrong.

I wanted you and the whole wide world. I wanted everything.

Be Brave. Remember, life is a gift.

She does it simply because it looks beautiful.

There's no denying it now. I'm in the world. And, too, the world is in me.

The thing about my mom's Bundts is that they are not very good. Terrible. Actually inedible, very nearly indestructible. Between you and me." - Olly Bright

When I was younger, one of my favorite activities was imagining alternative-universe versions of myself. Sometimes I was a rosy-cheeked outdoorsy girl who ate flowers and hiked alone, uphill, for miles. Or I was a skydiving, drag-racing, adrenaline-fueled daredevil. Or a chain mail-wearing, sword swinging dragon slayer. It was fun to imagine those things because I already knew who I was. Now I don't know anything. I don't know who I'm supposed to be in my new world.

Rejection was like sandpaper. His skin sloughed away under its constant onslaught. After a while, Samuel wasn't sure which would last long: himself or his dreams.

I love you, Maddy." "I love you, Olly. I loved you before I knew you.

Observable fact : I don't believe in magic.

Observable fact : We are magic.

Why was the boy surprised to find celery growing out of his ears?

I throw my hands up. 'There is nothing wrong with having dreams. I may be a stupid dreamer, but at least I have them.' 'Why is that a virtue?' she demands. 'All you dreamer types think the universe exists just for you and your passion.
'Better than not having any at all.'
She narrows her eyes at me, ready to debate. 'Really? Why?'
I can't believe I have to explain this. 'That's what we're put on earth to do.

I was trying so hard to find the single pivotal moment that set my life on its path. The moment that answered the question, 'How did I get here?'

But it's never just one moment. It's a series of them. And your life can branch out from each one in a thousand different ways. Maybe there's a version of your life for all the choices you make and all the choices you don't.

Maybe it's better to end things this way. Better to have a tragic and sudden end than to have a long, drawn-out one where we realize that we're just too different, and that love alone is not enough to bind us. I think all these things. I believe none of them.

I didn't know you this morning, and now I don't remember not knowing you.

Olly: jesus. is there a girl on this planet who doesn't love mr.darcy
Madeline: All girls love Mr. Darcy?
Olly: are you kidding? even my sister loves darcy and she doesn't love anybody
Madeline: She must love somebody. I'm sure she loves you
Olly: what's so great about darcy?
Madeline: That's not a serious question
Olly: he's a snob
Madeline: But he overcomes it and eventually realizes that character matters more than class! He's a man open to learning life's lessons! Also, he's completely gorgeous and noble and brooding and poetic. Did I mention gorgeous? Also, he loves Elizabeth beyond all reason.

I understand his fear. Who are we if not a product of our parents and their histories?

It's not a competition if one person can't even show up for the event.

I don't believe in love."

"It's not a religion," he says. "It exists whether you believe in it or not.

Trying not to smile only makes you smile more.

We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.

Charlie and Daniel think money and happiness are not related. They don't know what poor is. They don't know that poverty is a sharp knife carving away at you. They don't know what it does to a body. To a mind.

Madeline: I'm not a princess.
Madeline: And I don't need rescuing.
Olly: that's ok. i'm not prince.
Madeline: You think I'm pretty?
Olly: for a fairytale ghost sky princess? definately

If I could, I would kiss him every second of every day. For all the days.

Human beings are not reasonable creatures. Instead of being rule by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true.

What colour are your eyes?
Olly (O): blue
Madeline (M): Be more specific please
O: jesus. girls. ocean blue
M: Atlantic or Pacific
O: atlantic. What colour are yours?
M: Chocolate brown.
O: More specific please
M: 75% cacao butter, dark chocolate brown
O: hehe. nice

I want to fall in love, with an emphasis on the falling part.

He says they're not his type, but I don't really get the concept of having a type. My type is girls. All of them. Why would I limit my dating pool?

The universe stops and waits for us.

If my life were a book and you read it backward, nothing would change. Today is the same as yesterday. Tomorrow will be the same as today. In the book of Maddy, all the chapters are the same.
Until Olly.

His eyes are a clear, summer-blue lake that I can't see the bottom of.

a melting pot. It's more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies. I'm looking at him and he's still not looking

his dad seemed to love Olly and Kara and his mom a little less than he did before. And the less he seemed to love them, the more they tried to become more lovable.

love is not love if it's not requited, right?

Should I tell him that I think dreams never die even when they're dead?

Love makes people crazy. Loss of love makes people crazy.

Just because it's the first time doesn't make it less real, does it? Even the universe has a beginning.

Observable Fact: You should never take long shots. Better to study the odds and take the probable shot. However, if the long shot is your only shot, then you have to take it.

I feel as if I've never been touched before.

You can't predict the future. It turns out that you can't predict the past either. Time moves in both directions - forward and backward - and what happens here and now changes them both.

he can't see past his own history to let us have ours.

He looks like a starving man, like he could devour me all at once. "That swimsuit," he begins. "Is small," I conclude.

You can find the meaning of life in a book.

Names are powerful things. They act as an identity marker and a kind of map, locating you in time and geography. More than that, they can be a compass.

I am not lonely, Mom," I snap. "I am alone. Those are different things.

[His eyes are] Atlantic Ocean blue, just like he'd said. It's strange because of course I'd known that. But the difference between knowing it and seeing them in person is the difference between dreaming of flying and flight.

Love always changes everything.

It's not that Natasha wants to let Daniel go; it's that she has to let go. It isn't possible for her to live in two worlds simultaneously, heart in one place, body in another. She lets go of Daniel to avoid being ripped apart.

Sometime the world reveals itself to you.

as•ymp•tote (ˈasəm(p)ˌtōt) n. pl. -s. 1. A wish that continually approaches but never achieves fulfillment. [2015, Whittier]

George E. Johnson marketed the "relaxer," a chemical product used to straighten otherwise curly African American hair. According to some estimates, the black hair care industry is worth more than one billion dollars annually.

Q: Will I encounter turbulence?
A: Yes. Into all lives a little turbulence must fall.

My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in.

I don't believe in love" -Natasha
"It's not a religion. It exists whether you believe in it or not" -Daniel

New York City has too much light pollution. It blinds us to the stars, the satellites, the asteroids. Sometimes when we look up, we don't see anything at all.

But here is a true thing: Almost everything in the night sky gives off light. Even if we can't see it, the light is still there.

In the end, she chose both. Korean and American. American and Korean. So they would know where they were from. So they would know where they were going.

Having dreams never killed anybody.

Dark matter is love. It's the attracting force.

Is it always like that?" I ask, breathless. "No," he says. "It's never like that." I hear the wonder in his voice. And just like that, everything changes.

Chaos theory says that even a small change in initial conditions can lead to wildly unpredictable results. A butterfly flaps her wings now and a hurricane forms in the future.

How chocolate turned white and the milk turned brown, and how sometimes you can't unmix things no matter how much you might want to.

It's not your fault. Life is a gift. Don't forget to live it.

Madeline: Form of poetry.
Olly: that assumes that I have one
Madeline: You're not a heathen.
Olly: limericks
Madeline: You are a heathen. I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.

Flowers for Algernon again? she asks. Doesn't that book always make you cry?
One day it won't, I say. I want to be sure to be reading it on that day.

She slips her hand into mine and smiles.

It's better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don't happen for a reason. They just happen.

I guess I'm more interested in why people feel they have to believe in God. Why can't it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we're born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough.

seriously. "Just because you can't experience everything doesn't mean you shouldn't experience anything.

-Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

We are programmed to plan ahead. It's part of our rhythm. The sun rises every day and defers to the moon every night.

One possible solution to the grandfather paradox is the theory of multiverse originally set forth by Hugh Everett. According to multiverse theory, every version of our past and future histories exists, just in an alternate universe.

For every event at the quantum level, the current universe splits into multiple universes. This means that for every choice you make, an infinite number of universes exist in which you made a different choice.

The theory neatly solves the grandfather paradox by posting separate universes in which each possible outcome exists, thereby avoiding a paradox.

In this way we get to live multiple lives.

There is, for example, a universe where Samuel Kingsley does not derail his daughter's life. A universe where he does derail it but Natasha is able to fix it. A universe where he does derail it and she is not able to fix it. Natasha is not quite sure which universe she's living in now.

I get a kind of déjà vu, but instead of feeling like I'm repeating something in the past, it feels like I'm experiencing something that will happen in my future.

It doesn't matter what she looks like. It doesn't matter if she's long or short legged. It doesn't matter if she's pale or tanned, if her hair is black or brown or red or blond. It doesn't matter if she's pretty or not. It matters that she feels the sun on her skin.

Listening to the magnified sound of my own breath is peaceful and strangely euphoric. I'm being reassured with every breath that I'm more than just alive. I'm living.

Desperation translates into every language.

But for that thank you.
The fact that someone saw her was the beginning.

Beware the Queen of Hearts. She'll have your head.

And it's the wanting that pulls me back down to earth hard. The wanting scares me. It's like a weed that spreads slowly, just beneath your notice. Before you know it, it's pitted your surfaces and darkened your windows.

My heart's been on my sleeve all day, and it's pretty bruised up right now.

The smile he gives me is worth living for.

You're just looking for someone to save you. Save yourself.

I'm glad you think this is funny," he says. "Come on," I say. "Tragedy is funny." "Are we in a tragedy?" he asks, smiling broadly now. "Of course. Isn't that what life is? We all die at the end.

This is where I would've taken Daniel. I would've told him to write poetry about space rocks and impact craters. The sheer number of actions and reactions it's taken to form our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is astonishing. The number of things that had to go exactly right is overwhelming.

Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale. But falling in love doesn't even begin to compare to the formation of the universe.

It's not even close

How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?