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The First Time I Saw You, At The Governor, I Handn't Been To Watch The Birds At The Border In Years. But That's What You Reminded Me Of. You Were Jumping Up, And You Were Yelling Something, And Your Hair Was Coming Loose From Your Ponytail, And You Were So Fast..." He Shakes His Head. "just A Flash, And Then You Were Gone, Exactly Like A Bird.

-Lauren Oliver

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The First Time I

Lauren Oliver

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The First Time I Saw You, At The Governor, I Handn't Been To Watch The Birds At The Border In Years. But That's What You Reminded Me Of. You Were Jumping Up, And You Were Yelling Something, And Your Hair Was Coming Loose From Your Ponytail, And You Were So Fast..." He Shakes His Head. "just A Flash, And Then You Were Gone, Exactly Like A Bird.

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They Didn’t Get Me, I Should Have Said. They Saved Me.

Most Of The Time One Night Blends Into The Next And Weeks Blend Into Weeks And Months Into Other Months. And Sooner Or Later We All Die. But At The Beginning Of The Night Anything’s Possible.

Love. I Love You. I’ll Always Love You, My Love. You Are The Love Of My Life.

Love Of My Life

Always Love You

Everything In Me Feels Fluttering And Free, Like I Could Take Off From The Ground At Any Second. Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music.

The Thing Is, You Don't Get To Know. It's Not Like You Wake Up With A Bad Feeling In Your Stomach. You Don't See Shadows Where There Shouldn't Be Any. You Don't Remember To Tell Your Parents You Love Them Or--in My Case--remember To Say Good-bye To Them At All.

The Past Is Nothing But A Weight. It Will Build Inside Of You Like A Stone.

Lies Are Just Stories, And Stories Are All That Matter. We All Tell Stories. Some Are More Truthful Than Others, Maybe, But In The End The Only Thing That Counts Is What You Can Make People Believe.

The Most Dangerous Sicknesses Are Those That Make Us Believe We Are Well

It's Weird How Much People Change. For Example, When I Was A Kid I Loved All Of These Things..and Over Time All Of Them Just Fell Away, One After Another, Replaced By Friends And Iming And Cell Phones And Boys And Clothes. It's Kind Of Sad, If You Think About It. Like There's No Continuity In People At All. Like Something Ruptures When You Hit Twelve, Or Thirteen, Or Whatever The Age Is When You're No Longer A Kid But A "young Adult," And After That You're A Totally Different Person. Maybe Even A Less Happy Person. Maybe Even A Worse One.

I Think Of All The Thousands Of Billions Of Steps And Missteps And Chances And Coincidences That Have Brought Me Here. Brought You Here, And It Feels Like The Biggest Miracle In The World.

It's Not My Fault I Can't Be Like You, Okay? I Don't Get Up In The Morning Thinking The World Is One Big, Shiny, Happy Place, Okay? That's Just Not How I Work. I Don't Think I Can Be Fixed.

There's That Confidence Again, That Semi-infuriating Easiness Of His, The Tilt Of His Head And The Smile. But Today It's Not Infuriating. Today I Like It, Feel Like It's Somehow Rubbing Off On Me, Like If I Was Around Him Enough I Would Never Feel Awkward Or Frightened Or Insecure.

I Will Make A Pact With You: I Will Do It If You Will Do It, Always And Forever. Take Down The Walls.

The Worst Is Knowing I Can't Tell Anybody What's Happening -or What's Happened- To Me. Not Even My Mom.

Everywhere He Touches Is Fire. My Whole Body Is Burning Up, The Two Of Us Becoming Twin Points Of The Same Bright White Flame.

I Need To Live My Life In The Light Of Their Deaths. I Need To Live.

If You Want Something, If You Take It For Your Own, You'll Always Be Taking It From Someone Else.

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge.

Running Is A Mental Sport, More Than Anything Else. You're Only As Good As Your Training, And Your Training Is Only As Good As Your Thinking.

We Are All Punished For The Lives We Have Chosen, In One Way Or Another.

...if You Are One Tardy Away From Missing Out On A Big Competition, You Should Probably Make Your Coffee At Home.

Welcome To The Free World. We Give People The Power To Choose. They Can Even Choose The Wrong Thing. Beautiful, Isn't It?

This Is Not The Person I Wanted To Become: Hatred Has Carved A Permanent Place Inside Me, A Hollow Where Things Are So Easily Lost.

There Is Nothing Else For People To Do. They Do Not Think. They Feel No Passion, No Hatred, No Sadness; They Feel Nothing But Fear, And A Desire To Control. So They Watch, And Poke, And Pry.

What I Meant Was, You Looked Happier In The Pictures.

A String Of Bright White Buildinh, Glistening Like Teeth Over The Slurping Mouth Of The Ocean.

Everything Looks Beautiful. The Book Of Shhh Says That Deliria Alters Your Perception, Disables Your Ability To Reason Clearly, Impairs You From Making Sound Judgments. But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

And When We Are With Alex, I Might As Well Not Be There. They Speak In A Language Of Whispers And Giggles And Secrets; Their Words Are Like A Fairy-tale Tangle Of Thorns, Which Place A Wall Between Us.

I Feel An Overwhelming Rush Of Sadness... I'm Just Struck With A Sense Of Time Passing So Quickly, Rushing Forward. One Day I'll Wake Up And My Whole Life Will Be Behind Me, And It Will Seem To Have Gone As Quickly As A Dream.

Could It Be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On A Friday?” I Roll My Eyes. “i Don’t Know. Did You Do A Lot Of Acid In The Sixties? Could Be A Flashback.” “i Was Two Years Old In 1960. I Came Too Late For The Party.” He Leans Down And Pecks Me On The Head. I Pull Away Out Of Habit. “and I’m Not Even Going To Ask How You Know About Acid Flashbacks.” “what’s An Acid Flashback?” Izzy Crows. “nothing,” My Dad And I Say At The Same Time, And He Smiles At Me.

Requiem Has Been Controversial Because People Dont Feel I Gave It Closure.

Because I Think You're Right. You Can Make A Difference." He Told Me Experiences Were Kind Of Like Fate, And Fate Usually Came In The Form Of A Test. He Told Me Fate Liked To Be Worshiped. It Liked To See Us Fall On Out Knees Before It Offered To Help Us Up..." ♥

This Is What Happens When You Try To Help People. You Get Screwed.

There Were Days I Asked For It-prayed For It When I Went To Sleep. The Belief That I Would See You Again, That I Could Find You-the Hope For It-was The Only Thing That Kept Me Going.

Most Of The Time-- 99 Percent Of The Time-- You Just Don't Know How And Why The Threads Are Looped Together, And That's Okay. Do A Good Thing And Something Bad Happens. Do A Bad Thing And Something Good Happens. Do Nothing And Everything Explodes.

Droplets, Droplets: We Are All Identical Drips And Drops Of People, Hovering, Waiting To Be Tipped, Waiting For Someone To Show Us The Way, To Pour Us Down A Path.

You Must Hurt, Or Be Hurt.

At The Same Time I Know That It’s Not Really Their Fault, At Least Not Completely. I Did My Part Too. I Did It On A Hundred Different Days And In A Thousand Different Ways, And I Know It. But This Makes The Anger Worse, Not Better.

Poetry Isn't Like Any Writing I've Ever Heard Before. I Don't Understand All Of It, Just Bits Of Images, Sentences That Appear Half-finished, All Fluttering Together Like Brightly Colored Ribbons In The Wind.

Not Gray, Exactly. Right Before The Sun Rises There's A Moment When The Whole Sky Goes This Pale Nothing Color-not Really Gray But Sort Of, Or Sort Of White, And I've Always Really Liked It Because It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

That's The Thing About Best Friends. That's What They Do. They Keep You From Spinning Off The Edge.

Let Me Tell You Something About Dying: It's Not As Bad As They Says. It's The Coming-back-to-life Part That Hurts.

You See, We Didn't Know.

An Eye For An Eye." "and The Whole World Goes Blind," Coral Puts In Quietly.

No Guy In His Right Mind Would Ever Choose Me When There Are People Like Hana In The World: It Would Be Like Settling For A Stale Cookie When What You Really Want Is A Big Bowl Of Ice Cream, Whipped Cream And Cherries And Chocolate Sprinkles Included.

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The Hours Here Are Flat And Round, Disks Of Gray Layered One On Top Of The Other...they Move Slowly, At A Grind, Until It Seems As Though They Are Not Moving At All. They Are Just Pressing Down.

Something Aches At The Very Core Of Me, Something Ancient And Deep And Stronger Than Words: The Filament That Joins Each Of Us To The Root Of Existence, That Ancient Thing Unfurling And Resisting And Grappling, Desperately, For A Foothold, A Way To Stay Here, Breathe, Keep Going.

But Now I Give In, Let The Anger Surge. I'm Sick Of People Acting Like This World, This Other World Is The Normal One, While I'm The Freak. It's Not Fair; Like All The Rules Have Suddenly Changed And Somebody Forgot To Tell Me.

And Now I Realize Lindsay's Not Fearless. She's Terrified. She's Terrified That People Will Find Out She's Faking, Bullshitting Her Way Through Life, Pretending To Have Everything Together When Really She's Just Floundering Like The Rest Of Us. Lindsay, Who Will Bite At You If You Even Look In Her Direction The Wrong Way, Like On Of Those Tiny Attack Dogs That Are Always Barking And Snapping In The Air Before They're Jerked Backward On The Chains That Keep Them In One Place.

The Whole Point Of Growing Up Is Learning To Stay On The Laughing Side.

Po Swirled Upward From Where It Had Been Sitting, And Floated Over To The Window. "when You Go Swimming And You Put Your Head Under The Water," Po Said, "and Everything Is Strange And Underwater-sounding, And Strange And Underwater-looking, You Don't Miss The Air Do You? You Don't Miss The Above-water Sounds And The Above-water Look. It's Just Different." "true." Liesl Was Quiet For A Moment. Then She Added, "but I Bet You'd Miss It If You Were Drowning. I Bet You'd Really Miss The Air Then."

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They Say The Cure Is About Happiness, But I Understand Now That It Isn't, And It Never Was. It's About Fear: Fear Of Pain, Fear Of Hurt, Fear, Fear, Fear - A Blind Animal Existence, Bumping Between Walls, Shuffling Between Ever-narrowing Hallways, Terrified And Dull And Stupid.

Mama, Mama, Put Me To Bed I Won’t Make It Home, I’m Already Half-dead I Met An Invalid, And Fell For His Art He Showed Me His Smile, And Went Straight For My Heart.

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We'll Walk Together Holding Hands, And Kiss In Broad Daylight, And Love Each Other As Much As We Want To, And No One Will Ever Try To Keep Up Apart.

Old Words; Words That Nearly Brought Me To My Knees. Live Free Or Die

Alex Is Dead, Do You Hear Me? All Of That-what We Felt, What It Meant- That's Done Now, Okay? Buried. Blown Away.

It's Amazing How Words Can Do That, Just Shred Your Insides Apart. Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Can Never Hurt Me - Such Bullshit.

I Think Of The Quietness Of Julian's Voice As He Said I Love You, The Steadiness Of His Rib Cage Rising And Falling Against My Back, As We Sleep.i Love You, Julian. But The Words Don't Come.

It Strikes Me How Strange People Are. You Can See Them Every Day - You Can Think You Know Them - And Then You Fшnd Out You Hardly Know Them At All.

Love Is The Only Thing In The World Worth Having. You Must Never Loose It Or Give It Away. We Must Never Let Them Take It From Us.

This Is What We Are Made For: Promises, Pledges, And Sworn Oaths Of Obedience.

I Said, I Prefer The Ocean When It's Gray. Or Not Really Gray. A Pale, In-between Color. It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

I'm Gone, Lost, Floating Away Into Nothingness Like I Am In My Dream, But This Time It's A Good Feeling - Like Soaring, Like Being Totally Free, And I Can Feel The Impression Of His Fingers Everywhere That They Touch, And I Think Of Stars Streaking Through The Sky And Leaving Burning Trails Behind Them, And In That Moment - However Long It Lasts, Seconds, Minutes, Days - While He's Saying My Name Into My Mouth And I'm Breathing Into Him, I Realize This, Right Here, Is The First And Only Time I've Ever Been Kissed In My Life.

Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It.

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. People Who Refuse To Stop Believing. People Who Refuse To Come To Earth. People Who Love In A World Without Walls, People Who Love Into Hate, Into Refusal, Against Hope, And Without Fear. I Love You. Remember. They Cannot Take It.

I Reach Out And Grab Her Wrist. It Feels Impossibly Tiny In My Hand, Like This One Time I Found A Baby Bird Near Goose Point, And I Picked It Up And It Died There, Taking Its Final Gasping Fluttering Breaths In My Palm.

It Was Unfair That People Could Pretend To Be One Thing When They Were Really Something Else. That They Would Get You On Their Side And Then Do Nothing But Fail, And Fail, And Fail Again. People Should Come With Warnings, Like Cigarette Packs: Involvement Would Kill You Over Time.

I Can Admit, Now, That I Must Have Loved Lena. Not In An Unnatural Way, But My Feelings For Her Must Have Been A Kind Of Sickness. How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

But For Now, The Future, Like The Past, Means Nothing. For Now, There Is Only A Homestead Built Of Trash And Scraps, At The Edge Of A Broken City, Just Beyond A Towering City Dump; And Our Arrival-hungry, And Half-frozen, To A Place Of Food And Water And Walls That Keep Out The Brutal Winds. This, For Us, Is Heaven.

We Wanted The Freedom To Love. We Wanted The Freedom To Choose. Now We Have To Fight For It.

Fighting For Love

The Sun Has Just Risen, Weak And Watery-looking, Like It Had Just Spilled Itself Over The Horizon And Is Too Lazy To Clean Itself Up.

He's Stuck With Me And I'm Stuck With Him. We're Stuck. That's What Growing Up Is All About, I Guess.

For A Second I Feel A Rush Of Sadness: For The Horizons That Vanish Behind Us, For The People We Leave Behind, The Tiny-doll Selves That Get Stored Away And Ultimately Buried.

We're Killers, All Of Us: We Kill Our Lives, Our Past Selves, The Things That Mattered. We Bury Them Under Slogans And Excuses.

That Is What Hatred Is. It Will Feed You And At The Same Time Turn You To Rot. It Is Hard And Deep And Angular, A System Of Blockades. It Is Everything And Total. Hatred Is A High Tower. In The Wilds, I Start To Build, And To Climb.

He Is No Longer Mine To Lose, But The Grief Is There, A Gnawing Sense Of Disbelief.

Sometimes I Feel Like If You Just Watch Things, Just Sit Still And Let The World Exist In Front Of You - Sometimes I Swear That Just For A Second Time Freezes And The World Pauses In Its Tilt. Just For A Second. And If You Somehow Found A Way To Live In That Second, Then You Would Live Forever.

Time Becomes A Stutter-the Space Between Drumbeats, Splintered Into Fragments, And Also Endlessly Long, As Long As Soaring Guitar Notes That Melt Into One Another, As Full As The Dark Mass Of Bodies Around Me. I Feel Like The Air Downstairs Has Gone To Liquid, To Sweat And Smell And Sound, And I Have Broken Apart In It. I Am Wave: I Am Pulled Into The Everything. I Am Energy And Noise And A Heartbeat Going Boom, Boom, Boom, Echoing The Drums.

Please Understand. Please Forgive Me. I Prayed Every Day For You To Be Alive, Until Hope Became Painful. Don't Hate Me. I Still Love You.

Fridays Are The Hardest In Some Ways: You’re So Close To Freedom.

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

I Cry For Everything I Abandoned And Because I, Too, Have Been Left Behind -- By Alex, By My Mom, By Time That Has Cut Through Our Worlds And Separated Us.

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.

Holy Mother Of Lord Cocoa Puffs

Like I Am Alice In The Wonderland And Have Gotten Too Big For The Room.

You Came Form Different Starts And You'll Come To Different Ends.

I Wonder If This Is How People Always Get Close: They Heal Each Other's Wounds; They Repair The Broken Skin.

That's When I Realized That Certain Moments Go On Forever. Even After They're Over They Still Go On, Even After You're Dead And Buried, Those Moments Are Lasting Still, Backward And Forward, On Into Infinity. They Are Everything And Everywhere All At Once. They Are The Meaning.

I'm So Tired After Dinner I Fall Asleep With My Clothes On, Almost As Soon As My Head Hits The Pillow, And So I Forget To Ask God, In My Prayers, To Keep Me From Waking Up.

I Need Him To Know That I Came For Him. I Need Him To Know That Somehow, At Some Point In The Tunnels, I Began To Love Him.

Sarah: "not Bad. You Look Almost Human." Lena: "thanks." Sarah: "i Said Almost." Lena: "well, Then, Almost Thanks.

I Thought The Invalids Were Beasts; I Thought They Would Rip Me Apart. But These People Saved Me, And Gave Me The Softest Place To Sleep, And Nursed Me Back To Health, And Haven't Asked For Anything In Return. The Animals Are On The Other Side Of The Fence: Monsters Wearing Uniforms. They Speak Softly, And Tell Lies, And Smile As They're Slitting Your Throat.

I’m Not The Hana Everyone Told Me I Would Be After My Cure.

They Told Us Love Was A Disease. They Told Us It Would Kill Us In The End. For The Very First Time I Realize, That This, Too, Might Also Be A Lie.

I’m Sorry,” He Repeats Again, Too Low For Raven And Tack To Hear. “i’m Sorry For Everything.

I Suppose That's The Secret, If You're Ever Wishing For Things To Back The Way They Were. You Just Have To Look Up.

I Wish I Could Close My Eyes And Be Blown Into Dust And Nothingness, Feel All My Thoughts Disperse Like Dandelion Fluff Drifting Off On The Wind. But His Hands Keep Pulling Me Back: Into The Alley, And Portland, And A World That Has Suddenly Stopped Making Sense.

This Is What I Want. This Is The Only Thing I've Ever Wanted. Everything Else—every Single Second Of Every Single Day That Has Come Before This Very Moment, This Kiss—has Meant Nothing.

Anything, Anything Is Possible, If You Can Just See The Sky.

Anything Is Possible

Until, One Day, She Wasn’t.

It's The Rule Of The Wilds. You Must Be Bigger, And Stronger, And Tougher. A Coldness Radiates Through Me, A Solid Wall That Is Growing, Piece By Piece, In My Chest. He Doesn't Love Me. He Never Loved Me. It Was All A Lie. "the Old Lena Is Dead." I Say, And Then Push Past Him. Each Step Is More Difficult Than The Last; The Heaviness Fills Me And Turns My Limbs To Stone. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

I Know What The Problem Is, Of Course. The Disorientation, The Distraction, The Difficulty Focusing - All Classic Phase One Signs Of Deliria. But I Don't Care. If Pneumonia Felt This Good I'd Stand Out In The Snow In The Winter With Bare Feet And No Coat, Or March Into The Hospital And Kiss Pneumonia Patients

There Are Some Losses We Never Get Over.

Who Knows? Maybe They’re Right. Maybe We Are Driven Crazy By Our Feelings. Maybe Love Is A Disease, And We Would Be Better Off Without It. But We Have Chosen A Different Road. And In The End That Is The Point Of Escaping The Cure: We Are Free To Choose. We Are Even Free To Choose The Wrong Thing.

I'm Used To A Feeling Of Doubleness, Of Thinking One Thing And Having To Do Another, A Constant Tug-of-war.

That's What It Was Like Waking Up In The Crypts. No-longer-dead. But Without Her. Like Burning Alive.

The Devil Stole Into The Garden Of Eden. He Carried With Him The Disease - Amor Deliria Nervosa - In The Form Of A Seed. It Grew And Flowered Into A Magnificent Apple Tree, Which Bore Apples As Bright As Blood. -from Genesis: A Complete History Of The World And The Known Universe, By Steven Horace, Phd, Harvard University

His Eyes Are The Color Of Honey. These Are The Eyes I Remember From My Dreams.

This Is Pretty Much The Answer To Every Problem You Encounter In Suburbia: Plant A Tree, And Hope You Don't See Anyone's Privates.

Promise Me We'll Stay Together, Okay? His Eyes Are Once Again The Clear Blue Of A Perfectly Transparent Pool. They Are Eyes To Swim In, To Float In, Forever. "you And Me". "i Promise". I Say. Behind Us The Door Creaks Open, And I Turn Around, Expecting Raven, Just As A Voice Cuts Through The Air: "don't Believe Her.

If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing.

The Walls Are Covered -crammed- With Writing. No. Not Writing. They Are Covered With A Single Four-letter Word That Has Been Inscribed Over And Over, On Every Available Surface. Love.

He Was Still In Love With You, Anyway.

I Am Now Officially Married To Fred Hargrove. Nothing Will Ever Be The Same.

Nothing Exists But Him.

The Alchemist Was Dazed And Dumbfounded, As The True Meaning Of The Magic Was Revealed: *the Dead Will Rise From Glade To Glen And Ancient Will Be Young Again*. The Dead Had, After All, Risen. From Dead And Dry Things There Was Growth, And New Life Everywhere. And The Endlessly Long Winter Had At Last Turned To Spring. From Life To Death And Back Again To Life. It Was Indeed The Greatest Magic In The World.

My Heart Is Drumming In My Chest So Hard It Aches, But It's The Good Kind Of Ache, Like The Feeling You Get On The First Real Day Of Autumn, When The Air Is Crisp And The Leaves Are All Flaring At The Edges And The Wind Smells Just Vaguely Of Smoke - Like The End And The Beginning Of Something All At Once.

I Know Some Of You Are Thinking Maybe I Deserved It. But Before You Start Pointing Fringers, Let Me Ask You Is What I Did Really So Bad? So Bad I Deserved To Die? So Bad I Deserved To Die Like That? Is What I Did Really Much Worse Then What Anybody Else Does? Is It Really So Much Worse Than What You Do?

I Love You. Remember. They Cannot Take It

Hate Isn’t The Most Dangerous Thing, He’d Said. Indifference Is.

The Tunnels May Be Long, And Twisted, And Dark; But You Are Supposed To Go Through Them.

Things Would Get Difficult Again. But That Was Okay Too. The Bravery Was In Moving Forward, No Matter What.

I Love You. Remember. And Someday, I Will Find You Again.

Two Weeks Until Your Cure" She Says Finally. "sixteen Days" I Say, But In My Head I'm Counting: Seven Days. Seven Days Until I'm Free And Away From All These People And Their Sliding Superficial Lives Brushing Past One Another Gliding, Gliding, Gliding From Life To Death. For Them There's Hardly A Change Between The Two.

But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

It Was As Though The Darkness Was A Sheet Of Raw Cookie Dough And Someone Had Just Taken A Cookie Cutter And Made A Child-sized Shape Out Of It.

And This, Really, Is The Story-within-the-story, Because If You Do Not Believe That Hearts Can Bloom Suddenly Bigger, And That Love Can Open Like A Flower Out Of Even The Hardest Places, Then I Am Afraid That For You The World Will Be Long And Brown And Barren, And You Will Have Trouble Finding The Light. But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

No One Can Tell Us No. No One Can Make Us Stop. We Have Picked Each Other And The Rest Of The World Can Go To Hell.

I'm Mesmerized By The Way His Fingers Move Confidently Along Her Skin, As Though Her Body Is His To Reat And Touch And Tend To. She Was Mine Before She Was Yours: The Words Are There, Unexpectedly, Surging From My Throat To My Tongue. I Swallow Them Back.

As Steve Draws Me Closer To The Band, All I Can See Is A Frenzied Mass Of Seething, Writhing People, Like A Many-headed Sea Snake, Grinding, Waving Their Arms, Stamping Their Feet, Jumping. No Rules, Just Energy - So Much Energy, You Could Harness It; I Bet You Could Power Portland For A Decade. It Is More Than A Wave. It's A Tide, An Ocean Of Bodies.

I Keep Having The Urge To Cross My Hands Over My Chest, To Cover Up My Breasts, To Hide. I'm Suddenly Aware Of How Pale I Look In The Sunshine, And How Many Moles I Have Spotting Up And Down My Chest, And I Just Know He's Looking At Me Thinking I'm Wrong Or Deformed. But The He Breathes, 'beautiful' And When His Eyes Meet Mine I Know That He Really, Truly Means It.

Dystopian Novels Help People Process Their Fears About What The Future Might Look Like; Further, They Usually Show That There Is Always Hope, Even In The Bleakest Future.

Maybe All Of These Different Possibilities Exist At The Same Time, Like Each Moment We Live Has A Thousand Other Moments Layered Underneath It That Look Different.

I'm Not Ugly But I'm Not Pretty Either. Everything Is In-between. I Have Eyes That Aren't Green Or Brown, But A Muddle. I'm Not Thin But I'm Not Fat Either. The Only Thing You Could Definitely Say About Me Is That: I'm Short

I Think Of Grace And Feel A Sharp Pain In My Chest.

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.

You Have To Go Forward: It's The Only Way. You Have To Go Forward No Matter What Happens. This Is The Universal Law.

I Love You. They Can't Take It Away.

Maybe Before You Die, It's Your Ghosts You See.

Now I'd Rather Be Infected With Love For The Tiniest Sliver Of A Second Than Live A Hundred Years Smothered By A Lie.

I Screamed Until My Voice Dried Up In My Throat. We All Did. All Of Us In Ward Six, All Of Us Forgotten, Left To Rot.

Maybe It Would Be Better If We Didn't Love. If We Didn't Lose, Either. If We Didn't Get Out Hearts Stomped On, Shattered; If We Didn't Have To Patch And Repatch It Until We're Like Frankenstein Monsters, All Sewn Together By Who Knows What

The First One, We’ll Name Blue.

Is It Possible To Tell The Truth In A Society Of Lies? Or Must You Always, Of Necessity, Become A Liar?

Telling The Truth

They Couldn’t Have Known That Even This Was A Lie—that We Never Really Choose, Not Entirely. We Are Always Being Pushed And Squeezed Down One Road Or Another. We Have No Choice But To Step Forward, And Then Step Forward Again, And Then Step Forward Again; Suddenly We Find Ourselves On A Road We Haven’t Chosen At All. But Maybe Happiness Isn’t In The Choosing. Maybe It’s In The Fiction, In The Pretending: That Wherever We Have Ended Up Is Where We Intended To Be All Along.

We Can Never Understand. We Can Only Try, Fumbling Our Way Through The Tunneled Places, Reaching For Light.

Unhappiness Is Bondage; Therefore, Happiness Is Freedom.

There Is Only What You Want And What Happens. There Is Only Grabbing On And Holding Tight In The Darkness.

Over The Past Week, I’ve Accepted That I Will Never Love Julian As Much As I Loved Alex. But Now That Idea Is Overwhelming, Like A Wall Between Us. I Will Never Love Julian Like I Love Alex.

This Is The World We Live In, A World Of Safety And Happiness And Order, A World Without Love. A World Where Children Crack Their Heads On Stone Fireplaces And Nearly Gnaw Off Their Tongues And The Parents Are Concerned. Not Heartbroken, Frantic, Desperate. Concerned, As They Are When You Fail Mathematics, As They Are When They Are Late To Pay Their Taxes.

And I Have Julian. I Found Him, And He Followed Me. I Reach Out In The Half Dark, Wordlessly, And Find His Hands. We Interlace Our Fingers, And Though He Doesn't Say Anything Either, I Can Feel The Warmth And Energy Passing Between Us, A Soundless Dialogue. Thank You, He Is Saying, And I Am Saying, I Am So Happy, I Am So Happy, I Needed You To Be Safe.

So Many Things Become Beautiful When You Really Look.

But This Isn’t Like Anything I’ve Ever Seen, Or Imagined, Or Even Dreamed: This Is Like Music Or Dancing But Better Than Both.

Sometimes I Feel Like She Deserves A Best Friend Who Is Just A Little More Special.

There's Still Always The Possibility That I've Gone Totally, Clinically Cuckoo. But Somehow I Don't Think So Anymore. An Article I Once Read Said That Crazy People Don't Worry About Being Crazy - That's The Whole Problem.

I Feel Like I'm Playing Some Giant Video Game, Or Trying To Solve A Really Complicated Math Equation. 'one Girl Is Trying To Avoid Forty Raiding Parties Of Between Fifteen To Twenty People Each, Spread Out Across A Radius Of Seven Miles. If She Has To Make It 2.7 Miles Through The Center, What Is The Probablitiy She Will Wake Up Tomorrow Morning In A Jail Cell? Please Feel Free To Round Pi To 3.14'.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

It's Funny How You Can Know Your Friends So Well, But You Still End Up Playing The Same Games With Them.

We Should Be Protected From The People Who Will Leave Us In The End, From All The People Who Will Disappear Or Forget Us.

We’ll Go.” Her Voice Is Surprisingly Deep And Forceful. Set In Her Sunken, Shipwreck Face, Her Eyes Burn Like Two Smoldering Coals. “we’ll Fight.

He’s Speaking In The Tone Of Voice That Everyone Uses When They’re About To Break You Apart. Gentle—kind, Even—like They Can Make The News Sound Better Just By Speaking In A Lullaby Voice.

And There It Is: Even Though We’re Standing In The Same Patch Of Sun-drenched Pavement, We Might As Well Be A Hundred Thousand Miles Apart.

I Just Want To Be Normal, Like Everybody Else." "are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?

It's An Incredible Thing, How You Can Feel So Taken Care Of By Someone And Yet Feel, Also, Like You Would Die Or Do Anything Just For The Chance To Protect Him Back.

I Didn't Realize Then What A Privilege That Was: To Be Bored With Your Best Friend; To Have Time To Waste.

But...books Are So Much More. Some Of Them Are Webs; You Can Feel Your Way Along Their Threads, But Just Barely, Into Strange And Dark Corners. Some Of Them Are Balloons Bobbing Up Through The Sky: Totally Self-contained, And Unreachable, But Beautiful To Watch. And Some Of Them―the Best Ones―are Doors.

You Can't Be Happy Unless You're Unhappy Sometimes".

Fear. Blame. Don't Forget. Mom. I Love You. -lauren Oliver, Delerium

This Is What Hatred Is. It Will Feed You And At The Same Time Turn You To Rot.

Maybe This Is The Secret To Talking To Boys--maybe You Just Have To Be Angry All The Time.

Most People Don't Want To Be Saved. Besides, If You Keep Bailing Everybody Out, They'll Never Learn To Paddle On Their Own.

Still, The Vivid Green Of The Grass-where The Grass Is Actually Managing To Assert Itself Through The Dirt-seems Out Of Place. This Seems Like A Place Where The Sun Should Never Shine: A Place On The Edge, At The Limit, A Place Completely Removed From Time And Happiness And Life.

I've Never Really Thought About It Before, But It's A Miracle How Many Kinds Of Light There Are In The World, How Many Skies: The Pale Brightness Of Spring, When It Feels Like The Hole World's Blushing; The Lush, Bright Boldness Of A July Noon; Purple Storm Skies And A Green Queasiness Just Before Lightning Strikes And Crazy Multicolored Sunsets That Look Like Someone's Acid Trip.

My Stomach Gets That Hollowed-out Feeling. It's Amazing How Words Can Do That, Just Shred Your Insides Apart.

How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

Because If It Weren’t For Me, Lena And Alex Would Never Have Been Caught At All. I Told On Them. I Was Jealous.

In My Dream I Know I Am Falling. But There Is No Up Or Down, No Walls Or Sides Or Ceilings, Just The Sensation Of Cold And Darkness Everywhere. I Am So Scared I Could Scream. But When I Open My Mouth, Nothing Happens. And I Wonder If You Fall Forever And Never Touch Down, Is It Really Still Falling? I Think I Will Fall Forever.

The Mark Of The Procedure. A Real One. Lu Is Cured.

Sometimes I Feel As Though There Are Two Me's, One Coasting Directly On Top Of The Other: The Superficial Me, Who Nods When She's Supposed To Nod And Says What She's Supposed To Say, And Some Other, Deeper Part, The Part That Worries And Dreams... Most Of The Time They Move Along In Sync And I Hardly Notice The Split, But Sometimes It Feels As Though I'm Two Whole Different People And I Could Rip Apart At Any Second.

Huamns, Uregulated, Are Cruel And Capricious; Violet And Selfish; Miserable And Quarrelsome. It Is Only After Their Instincts And Basic Emotions Have Been Controlled That They Can Be Happy, Generous, And Good.

One Of The Strangest Things About Life Is That It Will Chug On, Blind And Oblivious, Even As Your Private World - Your Little Carved-out Sphere - Is Twisting And Morphing, Even Breaking Apart.

So Far I've Seen The Life Studies Packet Used As (1) An Umbrella, (2) A Makeshift Towel, (3) A Pillow, And Now This. I Have Never Actually Seen Anyone Study With It, Which Either Means That Everyone Who Graduates From Thomas Jefferson Will Be Totally Unprepared For Life Or That Certain Things Can't Be Learned In Bullet-point Format.

That's The Way I Feel, At Least: Like There's A Real Me And A Reflection Of Me, And I Have No Way Of Telling Which Is Which.

It Won't Matter If Nobody Ever Thinks I'm Pretty (although Sometimes I Wish, Just For A Second, That Somebody Would)

Only When It Rains. And Sometimes, Too, When I Remember.

I Was Glad When The Invalids Were Executed. Some People Complained That Lethal Injection Was Too Humane For Convicted Terrorists, But I Thought It Sent A Powerful Message: We Are Not The Evil Ones. We Are Reasonable And Compassionate. We Stand For Fairness, Structure, And Organization. It’s The Other Side, The Uncureds, Who Bring The Chaos.

I'm Overwhelmed With Sadness For Everything That Was Lost, And Filled With Anger Toward The People Who Took It Away. My People-or At Least, My Old People. I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore, Or Where I Belong. That's Not Totally True...i Know I Belong With Alex.

We Are Such Small, Stupid Things. For Most Of My Life I Thought Of Nature As The Stupid Thing: Blind, Animal, Destructive. We, The Humans, Were Clean And Smart And In Control: We Had Wrestled The Rest Of The World Into Submission, Battered It Down, Pinned It To A Glass Slide And The Pages Of The Bool Of Shhh.

Step On A Crack , You'll Break Your Mama's Back. Step On A Stone, You'll End Up All Alone. Step On A Stick, You're Bound To Get The Sick. Watch Where You Tread, You'll Bring Out All The Dead. - A Common Children's Playground Chant, Usually Accompanied By Jumping Rope Or Clapping.

And For A Moment―for A Split Second―everything Else Falls Away, The Whole Pattern And Order Of My Life, And A Huge Joy Crests In My Chest. I Am No One, And I Owe Nothing To Anybody, And My Life Is My Own.

I Don't Know How I Stay On My Feet, Why I Don;t Just Shatter Into Dust Right There, Why My Heart Keeps Beating When I Want It So Badly To Stop

There's Always Some Relief In Giving Up.

And How She Looked At Me Like I Could Save Her From Everything Bad In He World. This Was My Secret: She Was The One Who Saved Me

And A Face Above Mine, White And Beautiful, Eyes As Large As The Moon. You Saved Me. A Hand On My Cheek, Cool And Dry. Why Did You Save Me? Words Welling Up On A Tide: No, The Opposite. Eyes The Colour Of A Dawn Sky, A Crown Of Blond Hair, So Bright And White And Blinding I Could Swear It Was A Halo.

And It's The Funniest Thing: As Soon As I See It, The Whistling In My Ears Stops And The Feeling Of Terror Drains Away, And I Realize This Whole Time I Haven't Been Falling At All. I've Been Floating.

That Was What Her Parents Did Not Understand—and Had Never Understood—about Stories. Liza Told Herself Storied As Though She Was Weaving And Knotting An Endless Rope. Then, No Matter How Dark Or Terrible The Pit She Found Herself In, She Could Pull Herself Out, Inch By Inch And Hand Over Hand, On The Long Rope Of Stories.

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