Lauren Bachman > Lauren's Quotes

“I wonder what life will be like a millennium from now, when the average age will be nearer to one thousand. Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but I suspect the latter.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“I have no desire to impose upon humanity a false utopia. Mine is not a "brave new world" but a world ruled by wisdom, conscience, and compassion. I concluded that if defiance was a normal expression of human passion and yearning, I would have to make room for its expression.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“And each time I witness a cruel act by a corrupt scythe, I seed the clouds somewhere in the world, and bring a lamentation of rain. Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears. —The Thunderhead”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“That which comes can't be avoided.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“This, I know, is a rabbit hole down which only darkness lies, and yet, down it I must dive, into the parts of my own backbrain that not even I know exist...”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“When he took her in his arms, it suddenly didn't seem to matter what was going on outside of their tiny, sealed universe. In these terminal minutes of their current lives, it was just the two of them finally, finally giving in to their ultimate act of completion. The binary at last becoming the one.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you're having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I'm fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I'm not falling apart. I'm just lazy. Why it's better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I'm not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“You can't expose a lie without first shattering the will to believe it. That is why leading people to truth is so much more effective than merely telling them.”
― Neal Shusterman, The Toll

“We are imperfect beings," Munira said. "How could we ever fit in a perfect world?”
― Neal Shusterman, The Toll

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“My arms are killing me.
I didn't know words could be so heavy.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“Of course you're real-like any thought or any story. It's real when you're in it.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me!
But you're far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours. Your eyes are safe. The story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. For me, it's here. It's now. I have to go through with this, considering the cost at every turn. Nothing will be the same.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules... was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“His life had been divided into a before and an after, and he would always be comparing the two.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“He talked about the ocean between people. And how the whole point of everything is to find a shore worth swimming to.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“The best books, they don't talk about things you never thought about before. They talk about things you'd always thought about, but that you didn't think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you're a little bit less alone in the world. You're part of this cosmic community of people who've thought about this thing, whatever it happens to be.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Against an eggplant-purple backdrop shone a single bright star, blue as a sapphire, like a fleck of afternoon someone had forgotten to wipe away.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Nobody can help. And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in.

And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and be safe again.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“I lay in bed the night before the fishing trip and thought it over, about my being deaf, about the years of not letting on I heard what was said, and I wonder if I can ever act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”
― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:
A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.”
― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in.”
― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The funny thing about gold is how quickly it can tarnish.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything