Lauren DeStefano Quotes

You can't be afraid. You can be sad if you like. You can be angry. But it's the fear that'll freeze you in place.

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.

You have a way of looking at things. You make it seem as though everything's going to be okay. I can't imagine a more dangerous thing to have than hope like yours.

Kettle thingies. Yum.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

But instead of tears, when I press my face against the pillow, a horrible, primal scream comes out of me. It's unlike anything I thought myself capable of. Rage, unlike anything I've ever known.

What have you done? What have you given up?' So many things, Cecily. More than you know.

The thing about hope is that it doesn't go away even when it serves no purpose.

Perhaps... you love too fiercely.

I don’t have too many books, I have too little shelving.

Humans are the absolute worst thing to happen to this planet.

The months fall to shards at my feet.

She's beautiful and graceful, and she is very compassionate and loyal when you aren't responsible for the murder of her family.

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

He sits next to me, careful to avoid my hair that's splayed out around my head like blood. A bullet to the forehead, boom, blond waves everywhere.

We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions

I wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didn't trust it with my secrets.

Every star has been set in the sky. We mistakenly think they were put there for us.

But I know all the things you're too sweet to know.

I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds.

Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.

I wonder what it’s like for her, looking so much like a dead girl.

She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.

I'm suddenly finding it hard to know the difference between nightmares and consciousness.

Maybe what frightens us about the edge isn't our fear of morality, but the thoughts it leads us to have.

Once upon a time there were two parents, two children, and a brick house with lilies in the yard. The parents died, the lilies wilted. One child disappeared. Then the other." Pg 225

It doesn't matter how much his mother loves him; love is not enough to keep any of us alive.

There’s a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.

And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.

...maybe hope isn't such a bad thing. Maybe it's what keeps us together.

Someday I'll tell you all of it," I say. "I'd like that," he says. "No," I say. "I promise you won't.

None of the wives mention the security guards by the door, who will probably tackle us to the ground if we try to leave without our husbands.

I can almost see what Gabriel meant when he asked, 'What has the free world got that you can’t get here?' Almost. Freedom, Gabriel. That’s what you can’t get here.

Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.

Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger. “Rhine Ashby,” he says. “My wife.

Poor kid,' Jenna says, and rolls her eyes toward me for a moment. Then she returns to her book. 'She doesn't even understand what kind of place this is.

Hope, that risky, illustrious thing. It should have gone extinct by now, but we keep it alive.

Don't you miss it?" I say. "Being free." He laughs.

Tell freedom I said hello.' 'If I happen to see it, I will.

Good night, sweetheart," he says. "Good bye, sweetheart," I say. And it's so casual, so innocent that he doesn't suspect a thing.

I liked just being with you. I liked the way you breathed when you were asleep. I liked when you took the champagne glass from my hand. I liked how your fingers were always too long for your gloves.

A party in the orange grove. The pain on Linden's face is immediate. I am unwavering. He has cost me more pain than I will ever be able to repay.

I miss something I never even had.

So many of the things I've wanted are the things I've been taught to fear.

Fate, I think, is a thief.

I shake my head, watching snow tumble and swirl from an all-white sky. The world seems so clean if you only look up

There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.

I was born into a world that was already dying; I belong to it.

Times like this, when she slips her hand into mine and holds on tight, and our husband becomes just a shadow in the doorway.