Wren And Cath Quotes

But it didn't break me. Nothing can break me unless I let it. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Wren's voice dropped. "She feels terrible about it, Cath."
"Good!" Cath shouted. "So do I!" She took a step closer to her sister. "I'm
probably going to be crazy for the rest of my life, thanks to her. I'm going to
keep making fucked-up decisions and doing weird things that I don't even
realize are weird. People are going to feel sorry for me, and I won't ever have
any normal relationships - and it's always going to be because I didn't have a
mother. Always. That's the ultimate kind of broken. The kind of damage you never recover from. I hope she feels terrible. I hope she never forgives herself."
"Don't say that." Wren's face was red, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm not broken."
There weren't any tears in Cath's eyes. "Cracks in your foundation." She
shrugged.
"Fuck that."
"Do you think I absorbed all the impact? That when Mom left, it hit my
side of the car? Fuck that, Wren. She left you, too."
"But it didn't break me. Nothing can break me unless I let it."
"Do you think Dad let it? Do you think he chose to fall apart when she
left?"
"Yes!" Wren was shouting now. "And I think he keeps choosing. I think
you both do. You'd rather be broken than move on."
"Dad's sick, Wren," she said as calmly as she could manage.
"And your omelette's burnt. And I'd rather be broken than wasted." She set
the plate on the counter. "You can tell Laura to go fuck herself. Like, to infin ~ Rainbow Rowell

So this is what you look like when you're keeping a giant secret from me - exactly the same as usual. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I love you, Wren," he said, voice strong and smooth as the river. "For everything that you are and everything that you aren't. ~ Kandi Steiner

Want to dance?" He scooped me into his arms before I could reply. "We have music this time. And I don't have to punch you when we finish."
"You don't have to. But if I step on your feet too many times you can feel free. ~ Amy Tintera

Ah." He set down his backpack and pulled out their notebook. "You're working on your final project?"
"Indirectly," Cath said.
"What does that mean?"
"Have you ever heard sculptors say that they don't actually sculpt an object; they sculpt away everything that isn't the object?"
"No." He sat down.
"Well, I'm writing everything that isn't my final project, so that when I actually sit down to write it, that's all that will be left in my mind. ~ Rainbow Rowell

As he walked along, consciously enjoying the early coolness of the morning, he turned and looked behind him. People often do this and are usually surprised to find that there is some reason for turning around. Sometimes there is no apparent reason and they wonder why they did it. ("Ordeal By Water") ~ P.C. Wren

Sweets and Tarts: The Most Wonderous Bakery in All of Hearts ~ Marissa Meyer

The question haunted me, and the real answer came, as answers often do, not in the canyon but at an unlikely time and in an unexpected place, flying over the canyon at thirty thousand feet on my way to be a grandmother. My mind on other things, intending only to glance out, the exquisite smallness and delicacy of the river took me completely by surprise. In the hazy light of early morning, the canyon lay shrouded, the river flecked with glints of silver, reduced to a thin line of memory, blurred by a sudden realization that clouded my vision. The astonishing sense of connection with that river and canyon caught me completely unaware, and in a breath I understood the intense, protective loyalty so many people feel for the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. It has to do with truth and beauty and love of this earth, the artifacts of a lifetime and the descant of a canyon wren at dawn. ~ Ann Zwinger

If you smile at everyone," she said, "how am I supposed to feel when you smile at me?"
"How do you feel when I smile at you?" he asked - and then he did smile at her, just a little.
Not like myself, Cath thought.
"Like an idiot," she said softly. "And like I never want it to stop. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Gorilla, a guy who got his name because he's hairy and because his arms are so long his knuckles scrape the floor. He's grinning and moving closer and she's blocked in on all sides by a mass of bodies. I look at her and him. I look at the window. I think back to our date. She can always break his nose if he gets too friendly. I jump through, land on the grass, and turn around. Who am I kidding? I want to see it if she breaks his nose. ~ Cath Crowley

I go to the shelf and pick out a few poetry books to take with me. A few old favorites and a few I haven't gotten to yet. As I slip the books into my carry-on, it occurs to me that there really are a lot of poems about death, that I've always read many poems about dying, but had almost never noticed them before. They were always the ones I lightly skimmed, and I thought that maybe I could start reading these poems more carefully. It was almost nothing, but it was also a decision about my life. ~ Jacob Wren

So stop making it so hard, Cath. You kissed him, right? The only question is, do you want to kiss him again? ~ Rainbow Rowell

Cath shuddered, and her dad squeezed her tight. "When I think about her coming here," she said, "it's like that scene in "The Fellowship of the Ring" when the hobbits are hiding from the Nazgul."
"Your mother isn't evil, Cath."
"That's just how I feel."
He was quiet for a few seconds. "Me, too. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I lost my wife twenty years ago. Sometimes I feel as if I have lived without her for a decade, and sometimes I feel as though I lost her just a minute before.

I write lost, but I have grown to hate that expression. She was not a set of keys or a hat. Losing her is the equivalent of saying that I have misplaced my lungs. ~ Cath Crowley

Saint Cath, please guide my eyes, she prays, and keep my hands from stealing. She has to pray her prayer, or things from good people end up in her pack, and she hates that about herself. ~ Dylan Landis

I honor the wisdom of life. I learn from life in all its forms. The tree teaches me. The sparrow and the wren sing my song. I am open to the lessons Life brings me from the earth. I learn from the wind, from the sun, from the small flowers, and from the stars. I walk without arrogance. I learn from all I encounter. I open my mind and heart to the guidance and love that come to me from the natural world. ~ Julia Cameron

What are you reading?' he asks this afternoon.

'Kafka's Metamorphosis,' George says, without looking up.

'And what's it about?'

'Guy turns into a giant bug and eventually dies.'

'Not exactly life-affirming,' Martin observes.

'Life isn't exactly life-affirming,' George says.

'How have you been able to read so many books?' he asks, and she looks up from Kafka, her thumb marking the page. 'I'm a weird girl in high school. I've had some time to kill. ~ Cath Crowley

Often the idea of survival is mentioned in relation to capitalism, as in the phrase 'economic survival' or the thought 'I need to earn money to survive.' However, in our endeavour we hoped to sever survival from economy, striving for a purer form of modernized surviving. Our fight would be a fight for survival and the fighting itself would be our life, not in the sense of employment but in the sense of a full reality with all of the inherent risk, complexity and completion that living implies. ~ Jacob Wren

You've always called it a store, ever since we were kids. It's a bookshop. It's not like some other retail store. It might be the same in a whole lot of ways, but this bookshop is special. Books are special. Books are important. Words are important. Words matter, in fact. They're not pointless, as you've suggested. If they were pointless, then they couldn't start revolutions and they wouldn't change history. If they were just words, we wouldn't write songs or listen to them. We wouldn't beg to be read to as kids. If they were just words, then stories wouldn't have been around since before we could write. We wouldn't have learned to write. If they were just words, people wouldn't fall in love because of them, feel bad because of them, ache because of them, and stop aching because of them. ~ Cath Crowley

No, I know," Levi said. "But it's not you. You don't push through every moment. You pay attention. You take everything in. I like that about you - I like that better."
Cath closed her eyes and felt tears catch on her cheeks.
"I like your glasses," he said. "I like your Simon Snow T-shirts. I like that you don't smile at everyone, because then, when you smile at me. ... Cather." He kissed her mouth. "Look at me."
She did.
"I choose you over everyone. ~ Rainbow Rowell

But no, I'm sorry. I can't end there. I haven't yet said everything I want to say. A little girl is at school, out in the playground with her friends, and she sees a flower and says to her friends, just thinking out loud, wondering gently to herself: Do you think flowers have feelings? And for the rest of the day her friends tease her relentlessly, with every new opportunity that arises. Do flowers have feelings, that's so stupid. Right, flowers have feelings. All day and for the rest of the week: stupid flowers have stupid feelings and that little girl feels she is never going to say anything like that ever again. She has already learned that when you open your heart or express genuine, innocent curiosity or wonder about the world, your friends will pounce on the opportunity and use it to hurt you as viciously as possible and there is nothing anyone can do to protect her. It's simple stories like that that really break my heart. ~ Jacob Wren

And we can talk about everything-she's a coder, too. And she got a thirty-four on the ACT (Cath got a thirty-two). ~ Rainbow Rowell

Cath turned down her phone and slid it into her bag. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Cath wanted to go back and rewrite every scene she'd ever written about Baz or Simon's chests. She'd written them flat and sharp and hard. Levi was all soft motion and breath, curves and warm hollows. Levi's chest was a living thing. ~ Rainbow Rowell

We've got secrets coming out our arses and you want to take them to a clairvoyant? ~ Cath Crowley

The wren and the nightingale sound nothing alike, but think how dull the world would be without the songs of both birds.-Miss Kanagawa ~ Kirby Larson

That's not the point," he said. "What kind of creep would I be if I let my girl carry something heavy while I walked along, swinging my arms?"
Your girl? "The kind that respects my wishes," she said. "And my strength, and my ... arms."
Levi grinned some more. Because he wasn't taking her seriously. "I have a lot of respect for your arms. I like how they're attached to the rest of you. ~ Rainbow Rowell

As far as Reagan was concerned, Cath was already problematically weird. "It's bad enough that you have homemade Simon Snow posters," Reagan had said last night while she was getting ready for bed. "Do you have to have gay homemade Simon Snow posters?"
Cath had looked up at the drawing over her desk of Simon and Baz holding hands. "Leave them alone," she said. "They're in love. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Und nicht wahr, wenn man ihn zwänge, in das Licht selbst zu sehen, so würde er Schmerzen an den Augen haben, davonlaufen und sich wieder jenen Schattengegenständen zuwenden, die er ansehen kann, und würde dabei bleiben, diese wären wirklich deutlicher als die, welche er gezeigt bekam?

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? ~ Plato

Your idea of romance requires a corset and a time machine. ~ Cath Crowley

The memories are in the words. And from that the strange thought comes that my memories are trapped in all the copies of this poem, and so everyone who's reading it, no matter what copy, has my memories without knowing it. ~ Cath Crowley

Cath wanted to work on her own story now. Not the one for class. "Carry on".
"Carry on" was Cath's story. Thousands of people were reading it. Thousands of people wanted her to finish.
This story she was supposed to be writing for class? Only one person cared if she finished it. And that one person wasn't even Cath. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I try not to look at her because it's weird to check out your best friend, but I can't stop noticing things that I can't believe I've missed all these years. Her ears are exactly the right size. Her head is exactly the right shape. She smells fantastic.

'What?' she asks.

'Your head,' I tell her, 'is a very pleasing shape.'

'Likewise,' she says, and smiles. ~ Cath Crowley

He looks so stupid that it cancels out my
stupid so I give in and ride and he runs
and gets on the bike after only two tries. ~ Cath Crowley

He already knows what I look like," Cath said. "There's no point in being tricky about it now."
"How is doing your hair
and maybe putting on some lip gloss
being tricky?"
"It's like I'm trying to distract him with something shiny. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Hairy monkeyballs!" I hiss. "Dogshit on a stick! Puke pancakes!"
A head pokes in. Wren, green eyes smiling, walks over to my bed.
"I knew you were awake. Who else spews such original and captivating swears? ~ Sara Wolf

On a social level, people have to look after each other, but on an ethical level, each of us has to look after ourselves. If you are a billionaire it is because you have done evil in the world. You have exploited and caused untold misery. You have bent laws and governments to your will. I don't want to shoot him.
I want to strangle him with piano wire. I don't want to escape. I want to be caught and explain my idea to the world. I want to be executed. I now have nothing to lose. We will all be forgotten. But if ten of us manage to kill billionaires those ten will be remembered forever. Our poverty will become history. Wealth is impersonal but we will make it personal again. ~ Jacob Wren

I can't believe you're still mad at me," Ed says.
"You grabbed my arse."
"You broke my nose."
"You broke his nose?" Jazz asks. "You grabbed her arse?"
"It was two years ago-"
"Two years, four months, and eight days," I tell him.
"-and I was fifteen, and I slipped and she broke my nose."
"Wait a minute. How do you slip onto someone's arse?"
Jazz asks.
"I meant slipped up. I slipped up and she broke my nose."
"You're lucky that's all I broke," I say.
"You're lucky I didn't call the police."
Leo, Dylan, and Daisy slid into the booth. "Did you guys know that Lucy broke Ed's nose? Jazz asks.
Ed closes his eyes silently and bangs his head on the wall. ~ Cath Crowley

What would we do together?" Cath asked. "He'd want to go to the bar,and I'd want to stay home and write fanfiction. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Architecture has its political Use; publick Buildings being the Ornament of a Country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and Commerce; makes the People love their native Country, which Passion is the Original of all great Actions in a Common-wealth ... Architecture aims at Eternity. ~ Christopher Wren

It's a different kind of missing. You're trying to remember, and he's trying to forget. ~ Cath Crowley

Wren laughs when I kneel on the floor and try to do a breakdance head-spin. I end up taking down two people before Kayla kicks me in a friendly manner to get me to stop. ~ Sara Wolf

There were ten tongues within one head, and one went out to fetch some bread, to feed the living and the dead." "What does it mean?" "A wren made a nest inside the skull of a gibbeted corpse, flying in and out of the jaw to feed its young. In the midst of death, as it were, life just keeps on happening. ~ Neil Gaiman

Honey, I've watched a lot of 90210. The parents weren't even on the show once Brandon and Brenda went to college. This is your time - you're supposed to going to frat parties and getting back together with Dylan."
"Why does everybody want me to go to frat parties?"
"Who wants you to go to frat parties? I was just kidding. Don't hang out with frat guys, Cath, they're terrible. All they do is get drunk and watch 90210. ~ Rainbow Rowell

It isn't the smallness of this place that bothers me. It's the grey that's worked its way into the walls. It's the stains on the carpet from some other life that came and left before ours. Bert always said he'd give me a good deal on paint but some places take burning down and rebuilding to make them shiny."
-Ed, page 10 ~ Cath Crowley

Love and romance are things worth waiting for. ~ Cath Crowley

The wren-box problem is becoming more acute each year, for wrens now demand better housing conditions and labor-saving devices. ~ Will Cuppy

There is pleasure in reading a version of myself I know in my heart could never exist, since mine is not an iron mind coldly calculating every possible option and outcome. Instead I am a businessman who loves excitement, loves tension, loves risk and the unexpected, and just happens to possess an extraordinary, on occasion even miraculous, degree of good luck. ~ Jacob Wren

The almost complete, but temporary, loss of self that was involved - a loss of self present in all intense sexual encounters - doubled as an open door through which one could enter new areas of thought, as if one had left one's old self behind, as if within this new, amorphous territory, in which one was no longer one's previous self but had not yet become anything else, infinite modes of discovery became possible. The intimacy of our nakedness made us feel, or at least gave the illusion, that we were so much more directly engaged, both in dialogue with the larger world of ideas and with each other. This directness of being intertwined, exhausted and sated, of drifting in and out of sleep and having the strains of our discussions, of our nighty lessons, freely intermixed with half-remembered dreams forms the basis for a different kind of learning, learning that enters not only through the mind but also through skin and sweat and pores. In this way ideas are divested of their previously cold abstraction and instead gain heat, momentum and complicity. This is the deep learning, and there is no conduit for it other than one's intimate and ongoing personal experience. ~ Jacob Wren