Mafi Quotes

Killing time isn't as difficult as it sounds.
I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand. I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep. I can suffocate seconds just by holding my breath. I've been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I've finally gotten to a point in my life where I'm not afraid to speak. Where my shadow no longer haunts me. And I don't want to lose that freedom
not again. I can't go backward. I'd rather be shot dead screaming for justice than die alone in a prison of my own making. ~ Tahereh Mafi

He smiles. "You know- I feel everything when you touch me, love. I can feel your excitement. Your nervousness. Your pleasure. And I love it," he says quietly. "I love the way you respond to me. I love the way you want me. I feel it when you lose yourself, the way you trust me when we're together. And I feel your love for me," he whispers. "I feel it in my bones,"
~ Warner to Ella/Juliette ~ Tahareh Mafi

She reaches down, her fingers trailing along the zipper of my pants, and the movement sears through me. My vision goes white. For a moment I hear nothing but my heart, pounding in my head.
"You are trying to kill me," I say.
"Aaron." I can feel her smile as she whispers the word in my ear. She's unbuttoning my pants. "Please."
And I, I am gone. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Everything I was, everything I did, everything I am, was forged from the twins of their action and inaction. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I wish I could step outside of myself for a while. I want to leave this worn body behind, but my chains are too many, my weights too heavy. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I made so many promises when I arrived here.
Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm worried. Now my mind is a traitor because my thoughts crawl out of bed every morning with darting eyes and sweating palms and nervous giggles that sit in my chest, build in my chest, threaten to burst through my chest, and the pressure is tightening and tightening and tightening
Life around here isn't what I expected it to be. ~ Tahereh Mafi

If you don't eat, or if you miss a meal and find yourself hungry, feel free to shed your tears in the shower. And then learn to set a schedule. Don't bring your complaints to me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Moving forward is the only way to survive. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And that was it. There was nothing we could do. We just had to stand there, watching as they dropped bombs on thirty years of work, killed everyone too young or too old to fight back, and then massacred the rest of our team on the field." He clenches his hand around mine. "I come back here every day," he says. "Hoping someone will show up. Hoping to find something to take back." He stops then, voice tight with emotion. "And here you are. This shit doesn't even seem real."
I squeeze his fingers - gently, this time - and huddle closer to him. "We're going to be okay, Kenji. I promise. We'll stick together. We'll get through this. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Juliette!" His voice is tighter, higher, laced with anger and terror and denial and betrayal. Realization is a new piece in his puzzled mind.
"He can touch you?"
"Goddamit, Juliette, answer me!" Warner is writhing on the floor, unhinged in a way I never thought possible. He looks wild, his eyes disbelieving, horrified. "Has he touched you? ~ Tahereh Mafi

Why do you need me, then? If you're such an excellent murderer?"

A smile flickers and fades across his face. "One day I'll introduce you to the answer to that question. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The sky is raining bricks right into my skull. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Still, we took what we could get. We were wrapped up in each other, feeling happy and sad all at once, pretty much all the time ~ Tahereh Mafi

I want to be someone else somewhere else with something else to fill my mind. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Water that never moves." I say to him. "Its fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it'll sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic." I shake my head. "I need waves. I need waterfalls. I want rushing currents. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time to
wake up
wake up
"Wake up," he whispers. ~ Tahereh Mafi

No one has touched me in 264 days. Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I'm not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I'm so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I'm almost certain I'm going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me. It doesn't seem impossible. I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me. "Aren't you hungry?" His voice is lower now, a little worried now. I've been starving for 264 days. "No." The word is little more than a broken breath as it escapes my lips ~ Tahereh Mafi

The wind is singing outside my window but it's high-pitched and off-key and I don't have the heart to tell it to stop. ~ Tahereh Mafi

There was something so unreal about her, sitting there. I couldn't even see her face; couldn't discern the outline of her figure. Even then she fascinated me. That she could seem so calm, so still. She would sit in one place for hours at a time, unmoving, and I always wondered where she was in her mind, what she might be thinking, how she could possibly exist in that solitary world. More than anything else, I wanted to hear her speak.
I was desperate to hear her voice. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Some people are so stupid that they actually think there are thick neon lines separating good and evil. That it's easy to make that kind of distinction and go to sleep at night with a clear conscience. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Adam leans into my ear. I feel the soft whispers of his breath just before he begins to speak.
"You guys are disgusting, you know that, right?"
I look up, startled, and find Kenji frozen midmovement, his spoon halfway to his mouth, his head cocking in our direction. He gestures with his spoon at our faces. "What the hell is this? You guys playing footsie under the table or someshit? ~ Tahereh Mafi

The sky is weeping for us. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I wonder about glue.
No one ever stops to ask glue how it's holding up. If it's tired of sticking things together or worried about falling apart or wondering how it will pay its bills next week. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I am Juliette Ferrars, and I will lead this nation. I challenge anyone who would stand against me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I don't have the time, the energy, or the interest to deal with your problems. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I grieve nothing. I take everything. ~ Tahereh Mafi

A spare.
That's all I ever was, I realize. A spare part kept in captivity. A backup weapon in the case that all else failed.
Shatter me.
Break glass in case of emergency. ~ Tahereh Mafi

My heart is a field of lilies blooming under a pane of glass, pitter-pattering to life like a rush of raindrops. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I spend my life folded between pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived loss and loved trough stories threaded in history. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I want you to live up to your potential!"
"Let me go," I say quietly. I don't want to be your creature. I don't want to hurt people."
"The world has already hurt you," he counters. "The world put you here. You're here because of them! You think if you leave they're going to accept you? You think you can run away and live a normal life? No one will care for you.
No one will come near you-You'll be an outcast like you've always been! Nothing has changed! You belong with me! ~ Tahereh Mafi

Mortification. I'm draped in it. Painted in it. Buried in it. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I don't know that they always fell in love, exactly. Paris seldom let them spend that much time alone. But they were always drawn together. It was obvious, every time he put them in the same room, they were like" - Delalieu claps his hands - "magnets."

"You don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand," he cries, shaking his head. "You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They've known each other since childhood. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Ocean had given me hope. He'd made me believe in people again. His sincerity had rubbed me raw, had peeled back the stubborn layers of anger I'd lived in for so long. Ocean made me want to give the world a second chance. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I just read anything I could find. Fairy tales and mysteries and history and poetry. It didn't matter what it was. I would read it over and over and over again. The books, they helped keep me from losing my mind all together. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I've been here before, I tell myself. I've been lonelier than this, more hopeless than this, more desperate than this. I've been here before and I survived. I can get through this. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Because something inside of my heart is ripping apart and it feels like fear, it tastes like panic and anxiety and desperation and I don't know how to understand th image in front of me. I don't want to see Warner like this. I don't want to think of him as anything other than a monster.
This isn't right ~ Tahereh Mafi

My tears fall backward, burning as they singe their way down my throat. ~ Tahereh Mafi

If you're not happy, just leave. Don't cheat. Doesn't take a genius to figure that shit out. - Kenji ~ Tahereh Mafi

We are flies--gathering, swarming--bulging eyes and fragile bones flittering nervously toward imagined destinies. We hurl our bodies at the panes of tentalizing windows, aching for the world promised on the other side. Day after day we drag injured wings and eyes and organs around the same four walls; opened or closed, the exits elude us. We hope to be rescued by a breeze, hoping for a chance to see the sun. ~ Tahereh Mafi

This , I think , is the way to die.
I could drown in this moment and I'd never regret it. I could catch fire from this kiss and happily turn to ash. I could live here, die here, right here, against his hips, his lips. In the emotion in his eyes as he sinks into me, his heartbeats indistinguishable from mine.
This. Forever. This. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And I'd really appreciate it if you'd grow the hell up and stop walking around like the world crapped on your only roll of toilet paper. Because it's stupid, ~ Tahereh Mafi

Hope will break your heart all over again ~ Tahereh Mafi

Warner drops his hand. His glassy green eyes are so delighted I'm petrified.
"God, I've missed you," he says to me.
"You didn't actually think I'd let you go so easily? ~ Tahereh Mafi

It's not insane to imagine that sometimes even horrible people are searching for a way out of their own darkness. ~ Tahereh Mafi

It's never a good idea to believe everything you hear. ~ Tahereh Mafi

It is, after all, a simple and tragic thing that on occasion our unkindness to others is actually a desperate effort to be kind to ourselves. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I know I'm petty and I don't care.

- Kenji ~ Tahereh Mafi

I've loved you forever, I tell him.
The sun rises, rests, shines in his face and he almost smiles, almost can't meet my eyes. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You... you destroy me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Fear will learn to fear me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Gone is the boy with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and tender. ~ Tahereh Mafi

His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever.
Because this.
This is everything. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I don't know much about anything in this world but I do know how to read the book written in his eyes. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You'll be fine. You didn't even break anything. You messed up your knuckles and your brain freaked out a little and basically you just fell asleep for three days. I don't call that an injury," he says. "I call that a god- damn vacation. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The only existence I know now is the one I was given. An echo of what used to be. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I don't understand - why won't you talk to me?
You sit in the corner all day and write in your book and look at everything but my face. You have so much to say to a piece of paper but I'm standing right here and you don't even acknowledge me. Juliette, please - ~ Tahereh Mafi

How strange that we can go from friends to inseparable to hateful then casual all in one lifetime. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I almost forget that she still hates me, despite how hard I've fallen for her.
And I've fallen.
So hard.
I've hit the ground. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Aw, you trust me?"
"As long as I have a clear shot." I tighten my hold on the gun in my hand. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future ~ Tahereh Mafi

The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It's always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. ~ Tahereh Mafi

It's that terrible moment when you're sitting still so still so still because you don't want them to see you cry you don't want to cry but your lips won't stop trembling and your eyes are filled to the brim with please and I beg you and please and I'm sorry and please and have mercy and maybe this time it'll be different but it's always the same. There's no one to run to for comfort. No one on your side. ~ Tahereh Mafi

He's wrong he's so wrong he's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow.
But everything he said is right. ~ Tahereh Mafi

We write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I clung to something like hope, to a thread of maybes and possiblys and perhapses. ~ Tahereh Mafi

More people have died at the end of a loaded gun than from an empty stomach. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Winston points at my face. His eyes are a little unfocused, and he has to blink a few times before saying, I like you. It's pretty nice you're not dead. ~ Tahereh Mafi

His eyes are a midnight moment filled with memories, the only windows into my world. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You have no idea," he says to me, "what it means to truly suffer. Sometimes I think you live in some fantasy land where everyone survives on optimism
but it doesn't work that way out here. In this world, you're either alive, about to die, or dead. There's no romance in it. No illusion. So don't try to pretend you have any idea what it means to be alive today. Right now. Because you don't. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I open the book and turn to the next page. Day three.
I started screaming today.
And those four words hit me harder than the worst kind of physical pain. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Just try to be happy', Jacobi finally said to me. 'Your happiness is the one thing these assholes can't stand ~ Tahereh Mafi

Hang tight
Hold on
Look up
Stay strong
Hang on
Hold tight
Look strong
Stay up
One day I might break
One day I might
b r e a k
free ~ Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You've suppressed all your rage and resentment because you wanted to be loved," he says, no longer smiling. "Maybe I understand you, Juliette. Maybe you should trust me. Maybe you should accept the fact that you've tried to be someone you're not for so long and that no matter what you did, those bastards were never happy. They were never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did they?" He looks at me and for a moment he seems almost human. For a moment I want to believe him. For a moment I want to sit on the floor and cry out the ocean lodged in my
throat.
"It's time you stopped pretending," he says, so softly.
"Juliette - " He takes my face in his gloved hands, so unexpectedly gentle. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I practice using my voice, shaping my lips around the familiar words unfamiliar to my mouth. ~ Tahereh Mafi

His silence says so much. I can almost reach out and touch the guilt growing on his shoulders. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Laughter comes from living. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The sun had folded itself away and the moon was in no hurry to replace it. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I have nine different weapons concealed on my body right now. Would you like to choose the one I use to shoot you in the face? Or should i? ~ Tahereh Mafi

I am going to MURDER YOU - "
"No," he says, pointing at me as he shifts backward again. "Bad Juliette. You don't like to kill people, remember? You're against that, remember? You like to talk about feelings and rainbows - ~ Tahereh Mafi

We breathe when we're wrong, we breathe when we're right, we breathe even as we slip off the ledge toward an early grave. It cannot be undone. So I breathe. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I am not myself.
My thoughts are tangled in words that are not my own. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Torture is not torture when there's any hope of relief. ~ Tahereh Mafi

How is it possible, that I'm this close to you and it's killing me that you're still so far away? ~ Tahereh Mafi

I touch the tip of my finger to his lips. "There are secrets in here," I say. "I want them out."
He tries to bite my finger.
I steal it back. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And though I've always believed she and I shared many things in common. I did not know how deeply I could feel it.
It's killing me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Then what's happening right now? Because something is happening right now and it doesn't feel okay, he says, his voice catching. ~ Tahereh Mafi

His ignorance makes him vulnerable. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And you and Kent need to sort out your drama ASAP. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And I've fallen.
So hard.
I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have I felt this. Nothing like this. I've felt shame and cowardice, weakness and strength. I've known terror and indifference, self-hate and general disgust. I've seen things that cannot be unseen.
And yet I've known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.
Love is a heartless bastard. ~ Tahereh Mafi

We're running out of time, he said.
As if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls that were handed to us at birth and if we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water then our time would be lost, wasted, already spent.
But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It's endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not. ~ Tahereh Mafi

That traitorous bastard. The idiot who thinks he's won himself a pretty girl. He has no idea who she is. No idea what she'd about to become.
And if he thinks he's even remotely suited to match her, he's even more of an idiot than I gave him credit for. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Hope can make people do terrible things. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I'm in love with you."
"Good grief." She kept walking. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I sold my soul for a few years with my mother, and now, after everything, I don't even know if it'll be worth it.

- Warner ~ Tahereh Mafi

People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I know exactly what my future looks like and I'm okay with it. I'm happy to live in solitude. I'm not afraid of spending the rest of my life in the company of my own person. I do not afraid loneliness. ~ Tahereh Mafi

And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background.

Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run.

Run run run until you can't hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette.

Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you.

Run, I said. ~ Tahereh Mafi