Lauren Oliver Quotes

I wonder whether she was sorry for leaving us behind. ~ Lauren Oliver

Everyone is asleep. They've been asleep for years. You seemed ... awake.
I'm tired of sleeping. ~ Lauren Oliver

Animals, I think. We're animals. ~ Lauren Oliver

I've never really had a party before." "Why did you have one now?" I say, just to keep him talking. He gives a half laugh. "I thought if I had a party, you would come. ~ Lauren Oliver

You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. ~ Lauren Oliver

The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own. ~ Lauren Oliver

A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing. ~ Lauren Oliver

Are you ever afraid to go to sleep? Afraid of what comes next?"
He smiles a sad little smile and I swear it's like he knows. "Sometimes I'm afraid of what I'm leaving behind," he says. ~ Lauren Oliver

Sometimes I feel like she deserves a best friend who is just a little more special. ~ Lauren Oliver

amplified siren. I make it to the old subway entrance. ~ Lauren Oliver

I start to back away before I do something wildly inappropriate, like jump on top of him. ~ Lauren Oliver

He has given me a time and a place. He's telling me to meet him. ~ Lauren Oliver

We're killers, all of us: We kill our lives, our past selves, the things that mattered. We bury them under slogans and excuses. ~ Lauren Oliver

What did Saturday's used to taste like? Like eggs and fried ham and the bitter smell of hair in heavy rollers. Like long quiet hours and making up after a fight. Like ointment and bruising. Like waiting, especially, for something - anything - to happen. ~ Lauren Oliver

Everyone just wasting time because they have so much of it to waste, minutes slipping by on who's with who and did you hear. ~ Lauren Oliver

Every choice is limited,' I snap. 'That's life. ~ Lauren Oliver

Anger is useful only to a certain point. After that, it becomes rage, and rage will make you careless. ~ Lauren Oliver

Sometimes it is necessary that individuals are sacrificed for the the health of the whole. ~ Lauren Oliver

I haven't been falling all this time. I've been flying ~ Lauren Oliver

Do you ever think about him? About the boy who infected you?"
Images flash in the darkness: a crown of auburn hair, like autumn leaves burning; the blur of a body, a shape running next to me; a dream-figure. "I try not to," I say.
"Why not?" Julian's voice is quiet.
I say, "Because it hurts. ~ Lauren Oliver

People are like ants: Just a few of them give all the orders. And most of them spend their lives getting squashed. ~ Lauren Oliver

It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed. ~ Lauren Oliver

Strains of music spring up, crystallizing in the night air like rain turning suddenly to snow, drifting to earth. ~ Lauren Oliver

When Lyra read, it was as if a series of small windows open in the back of her mind, flooding her with light and fresh air and visions of other places, other lives, other, period. ~ Lauren Oliver

Most of us won't see one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be different. We'll be different. We'll be adults
cured, tagged and labeled and paired and identified and placed neatly on our life path, perfectly round marbles set to roll down even, well-defined slopes. ~ Lauren Oliver

If you draw a circle, there will always be an inside and an outside, and unless you're a total nut job, it's pretty easy to see which is which. It just happens. ~ Lauren Oliver

It's amazing how close I have been, all this time, to my old life. And yet the distance that divides me from it is vast. ~ Lauren Oliver

The memories seem like snapshots from someone else's life. ~ Lauren Oliver

Thing that don't matter when you've lived the same day ~ Lauren Oliver

Even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings with something small. ~ Lauren Oliver

I didn't realize then what a privilege that was: to be bored with your best friend; to have time to waste. ~ Lauren Oliver

The flyers lift and sigh in unison, like a thousand people waving white handkerchiefs, a thousand people waving good-bye. ~ Lauren Oliver

The guard's name was Mo, short for Molasses, as in slow as molasses or thick as molasses. The nickname had been his since he was so young he no longer remembered what his real name was. ANd it was true that from his earliest infancy, although his heart was as big and as warm and as generous as an open hand, his brain had seemed just a tiny bit small. ~ Lauren Oliver

I have had to give up so much, so many selves and lives already. I have grown up and out of the rubble of my old lives, of things and people I have cared for ... ~ Lauren Oliver

Maybe next time, but probably not. ~ Lauren Oliver

Coral slows us down. She has no visible injuries, now that she has bathed and had various cuts and scrapes bandaged, but she is obviously weak. She falls behind as soon as we begin to move, and Alex hangs back with her. In the early part of the day, even though I try to ignore it, I can hear the ribbon of their conversation weaving up and through the other voices. Once, I hear Alex burst out laughing. In ~ Lauren Oliver

I know the rules. I've been living here longer than you have."
He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. "Hardly."
"Born and raised. You're a transplant." I nudge him again, a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle my stomach. "Country bumpkin!" I squeal, as he grabs out and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing.
"City slicker," he says, rolling over on top of me, and then kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color, floating. ~ Lauren Oliver

As soon as she sees me she swings forward and hits a key on her keyboard. The music cuts off instantly. Strangely, the silence that follows seems just as loud. ~ Lauren Oliver

That's what you do for family.
Anything. ~ Lauren Oliver

It's funny, isn't it? When you are young you just want to be old, and then later you wish you could go back to being a kid. ~ Lauren Oliver

You have to go forward: It's the only way. You have to go forward no matter what happens. This is the universal law. ~ Lauren Oliver

My heart is fluid and soaring. There's no longer any space between heartbeats. ~ Lauren Oliver

They're pretty subtle. Only a few dozen of them. I can see how you might not have noticed. ~ Lauren Oliver

We come from two different worlds, and we belonged to two different sides. But everything will be okay. ~ Lauren Oliver

I came to find you last night," Lena says more quietly. "When I knew there was going to be a raid...I snuck out. I was there when - when the regulators came. I barely made it out. Alex helped me. We hid in a shed until they were gone..."
I close my eyes and reopen them. I remember wiggling into the damp earth, bumping my hip against the window. I remember standing, and seeing the dark forms of bodies lying like shadows in the grass, and the sharp geometry of a small she shed, nestled in the trees.
Lena was there. It was almost unimaginable.
"I can't believe that. I can't believe you snuck out during a raid - for me." My throat feels thick again, and I will myself not to start crying. For a moment I am overwhelmed by a feeling so huge and strange, I have no name for it: It surges over the guilt and the shock and the envy; it plunges a hand into the deepest part of myself and roots me to Lena. ~ Lauren Oliver

Memory is like that, too. We build careful bridges. But they're weaker than we think. ~ Lauren Oliver

I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my beautiful, big-eyed girls. But I worry about Rachel less. Rachel was always harder than Lena, somehow. More defiant, more stubborn, less feeling . Even as a girl, she frightened me - fierce and fiery-eyed, with a temper like my father's once was.
But Lena . . . little darling Lena, with her tangle of dark hair and her flushed, chubby cheeks. She used to rescue spiders from the pavement to keep them from getting squashed; quiet, thoughtful Lena, with the sweetest lisp to break your heart. To break my heart: my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. I wonder whether her front teeth still overlap; whether she still confuses the words pretzel and pencil occasionally; whether the wispy brown hair grew straight and long, or began to curl.
I wonder whether she believes the lies they told her. ~ Lauren Oliver

Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even /think/ the word
death? Dying? Dead?
Do you think I was being stupid? Naive?
Try not to judge. Remember that we're the same, you and me.
I thought I would live forever too. ~ Lauren Oliver

You can't cheat if there are no rules ~ Lauren Oliver

Are you sure you can't dematerialize? Not even a little?"
"I'm sure. ~ Lauren Oliver

I've relived that moment so often in my head, I can never be sure what really happened and what we only embellished afterward. But does it matter? We make reality our own, handle it until it is as soft as pressed butter. ~ Lauren Oliver

The DFA and organizations like it have pushed and squeezed and elbowed out all the feeling in the world. They have clamped their fists around a geyser to keep it from exploding.
But the pressure eventually builds, and the explosion will always come. ~ Lauren Oliver

I still wanted to know why. As though somebody was going to answer that for me, as though any answer would be satisfying. ~ Lauren Oliver

I don't care about that," he says, lower. Another pause, and then: "I just don't want you to hate me. ~ Lauren Oliver

She knew, now, that there was always light - beyond the dark, and the fear, out of the depths; there was sun to reach for, and air and space and freedom.
There was always a way up, and out, and no need to be afraid. ~ Lauren Oliver

In my mind, I was reliving my whole life again-slowly, taking my time. Delaying.
Because I knew, sooner or later, I'd get to her.
And then ... Well, I'd already died once. I couldn't live through it again. ~ Lauren Oliver

In books, secret worlds are accessible by doors or keys or other physical objects. But Lovelorn was not such a world, and appeared at whim and only when it felt like it, with a subtle change like the slow shifting of afternoon to evening. ~ Lauren Oliver

It occurs to me that there is so much I never knew about him
his past, his role in the resistance, what his life was like in the Wilds, before he came to Portland, and I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed. ~ Lauren Oliver

What is beauty? Beauty is no more than a trick; a delusion; the influence of excited particles and electrons colliding in your eyes, jostling in your brain like a bunch of overeager school children, about to be released on break. Will you let yourself be deluded? Will you let yourself be decieved?
-"On Beauty and Falsehood," The New Philosophy, by Ellen Dorpshire ~ Lauren Oliver

She had never seen snow before, except in TV shows and movies. It had looked to her like the stars were flaking out of the sky. It had looked like thousands of fireflies in the moonlight; like breathlessness, like time stopping, like the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. ~ Lauren Oliver

- And you completely blow me away and rip my world up and everything else, and then you go back to ignoring me."
"I blew you away?" I squeak out before I can stop myself.
He stares at me steadily. "You blew everything away. ~ Lauren Oliver

Liberty in acceptance; peace in enclosure; happiness in renunciation. ~ Lauren Oliver

In the quiet, and the dark, I got stronger. ~ Lauren Oliver

On the fourth ring there's the sound of fumbling. Then Kent's voice, warm and reassuring: 'Hunky Heroes, rescuing distressed women, captive princesses, and girls without wheels since 1684. How can I help you? ~ Lauren Oliver

I'm not sure whether he's looking for a frozen dinner or just taking advantage of the free cold air. ~ Lauren Oliver

You see, we didn't know. ~ Lauren Oliver

With 'Delirium,' I had to spend time thinking about the political, social and religious structure of a different world. But it was a fun challenge. ~ Lauren Oliver

I'm sorry for everything. Then he turns and pushes back into the woods, and he's gone. ~ Lauren Oliver

You just don`t know that it is the last time . But I think that`s a good thing , really , because if you did know it would be almost impossible to let go . ~ Lauren Oliver

Despite everything that has happened tonight, it's this stupid, basic fact that makes me feel like I am going to cry: He didn't deny that she was his girlfriend. ~ Lauren Oliver

Yeah, Roach is the resident ~ Lauren Oliver

As I wade into the still-freezing stream, the wind raises goose bumps on my body. A cloud of swallows skates across the sky; the water carries a slight taste of grit; my mother hums downstream. This is not any kind of happiness that I imagined. It is not what I chose.

But it's enough. It is more than enough. ~ Lauren Oliver

He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief. ~ Lauren Oliver

If Cassie was invalidated because she caught the disease, or because Fred suspected her of it, I can only imagine what he will do to me and to my family if he discovers that the cure did not work perfectly. ~ Lauren Oliver

I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took ~ Lauren Oliver

I know I must look like a fish, standing there with my mouth gaping open, but I'm ~ Lauren Oliver

We stand there for a moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it's as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about god: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected. feeling this way seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get ... ~ Lauren Oliver

You know you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes, right? ~ Lauren Oliver

There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next. ~ Lauren Oliver

I was going to tell you that you look beautiful with your hair down. That's all I was going to say. ~ Lauren Oliver

The cancer was back, this time pressing at the base of my brain stem." His hands tighten on the sides of the podium ~ Lauren Oliver

Kent?" I say, and my voice seems to have to rise from inside the fog, taking forever to get from my brain to my mouth.
"Yeah?"
"Promise you'll stay here with me?" I say.
"I promise," he whispers. ~ Lauren Oliver

Only people who have something to hide make a fuss about privacy. ~ Lauren Oliver

This is the strange way of the world, that people who simply want to love are instead forced to become warriors. ~ Lauren Oliver

I didn't know it would be like this," he says in a whisper. And then: "I'm scared. ~ Lauren Oliver

It's like there's a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking. ~ Lauren Oliver

Parents teach us our very first lesson about love: that you sure as hell don't get to choose it. ~ Lauren Oliver

Popularity's a weird thing. You can't really define it, and it's not cool to talk about, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn. ~ Lauren Oliver

There is the slapping of my shoes, and the trees that seem to nod and tell me, You're okay. Everything will be okay.

Maybe, after all, they're right. ~ Lauren Oliver

My wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. ~ Lauren Oliver

And, of course, we kiss. We kiss so much that when we're not kissing it feels weird, like I get used to breathing through his lips and into his mouth. ~ Lauren Oliver

I'd rather die my way than live yours. The ~ Lauren Oliver

Words are like a virus - there's no telling what kind of damage they'll do once they're out" -Mia ~ Lauren Oliver

The last thing I need is to morph into one of those people who's always wearing black and doodling guns and bombs on her notebook. ~ Lauren Oliver

That's what life is, pretty much: full of holes and tangles and ways to get stuck. Uncomfortable and itchy. A present you never asked for, never wanted, never chose. A present you're supposed to be excited to wear, day after day, even when you'd rather stay in bed and do nothing. ~ Lauren Oliver

Amazing, how hope lives. Without air or water, with hardly anything at all to nurture it. ~ Lauren Oliver

For a split second, he had looked almost like my Alex again. ~ Lauren Oliver

There's a poster with Thomas Edison's quote: GENIUS IS 1 PERCENT INSPIRATION AND 99 PERCENT PERSPIRATION. ~ Lauren Oliver

Lord, help us root our feet to the earth
And our eyes to the road
And always remember the fallen angels
Who, attempting to soar,
Were seared instead by the sun and, wings melting,
Came crashing back to the sea.
Lord, help root my eyes to the earth
And stay my eyes to the road
So I may never stumble.
-Psalm 24 (From "Prayer and Study," The Book of Shhh) ~ Lauren Oliver

He wasn't afraid. He just didn't care. And that was very, very different. ~ Lauren Oliver