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This Is The Language Of The World Before—a World Of Chaos And Confusion And Happiness And Despair—before The Blitz Turned Streets To Grids, Cities To Prisons, And Hearts To Dust.

-Lauren Oliver

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This Is The Language

Lauren Oliver

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This Is The Language Of The World Before—a World Of Chaos And Confusion And Happiness And Despair—before The Blitz Turned Streets To Grids, Cities To Prisons, And Hearts To Dust.

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I'd Rather Die On My Own Terms Than Live On Theirs. I'd Rather Die Loving Alex Than Live Without Him.

I Guess That's What Saying Good-bye Is Always Like--like Jumping Off An Edge. The Worst Part Is Making The Choice To Do It. Once You're In The Air, There's Nothing You Can Do But Let Go.

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

That's The Thing: We Didn't Really Care. A World Without Love Is Also A World Without Stakes.

Of Course. That's What People Do In A Disordered World, A World Of Freedom And Choice: They Leave When They Want. They Disappear, They Come Back, They Leave Again. And You Are Left To Pick Up The Pieces On Your Own.

It's The Time Of The Night I Like Best, When Most People Are Asleep And It Feels Like The World Belongs Completely To My Friends And Me, As Though Nothing Exists Apart From Out Little Circle: Everywhere Else Is Darkness And Quiet.

The Story Of Solomon Is The Only Way I Know How To Explain. And Then, In Smaller Letters: Forgive Me.

Until, One Day, She Wasn’t.

It Occurs To Me That There Is So Much I Never Knew About Him--his Past, His Role In The Resistance, What His Life Was Like In The Wilds, Before He Came To Portland, And I Feel A Flash Of Grief So Intense It Almost Makes Me Cry Out: Not For What I Lost, But For The Chances I Missed.

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

Of All The Systems Of The Body - Neurological, Cognitive, Special, Sensory - The Cardiological System Is The Most Sensitive And Easily Disturbed. The Role Of Society Must Be To Shelter These Systems From Infection And Decay, Or Else The Future Of The Human Race Is At Stake. Like A Summer Fruit That Is Protected From Insect Invasion, Bruising, And Rot By The Whole Mechanism Of Modern Farming; So Must We Protect The Heart.

I Vowed After That Day That I Would Be Your Hero Too, No Matter How Long It Took

"and I Love You Too." His Fingers Skate The Edge Of My Jaw, Dance Briefly Over My Lips. "you Should Know That. You Have To Know That."

You Can Build Walls All The Way To The Sky And I Will Find A Way To Fly Above Them.

They’d Already Taken Her From Me Once. I Didn’t Want To Lose Her Again.

I Know The Rules. I've Been Living Here Longer Than You Have." He Cracks A Smile Then. He Nudges Me Back. "hardly." "born And Raised. You're A Transplant." I Nudge Him Again, A Little Harder, And He Laughs And Tries To Catch Hold Of My Arm. I Squirm Away, Giggling, And He Stretches Out To Tickle My Stomach. "country Bumpkin!" I Squeal, As He Grabs Out And Wrestles Me Back Onto The Blanket, Laughing. "city Slicker," He Says, Rolling Over On Top Of Me, And Then Kisses Me. Everything Dissolves: Heat, Explosions Of Color, Floating.

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.

That's When You Realize That Most Of It-life, The Relentless Mechanism Of Existing-isn't About You. It Doesn't Include You At All. It Will Thrust Onward Even After You've Jumped The Edge. Even After You're Dead.

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

Hope Keeps You Alive.

He Is Looking At Me Through The Smoke, Across The Fence. He Never Takes His Eyes Off Me. His Hair Is A Crown Of Leaves, Of Thorns, Of Flames. His Eyes Are Blazing With Light, More Light Than All The Lights In Every City In The Whole World, More Light Than We Could Ever Invent If We Had Ten Thousand Billion Years.

But The Guilt Goes Even Deeper Than That. It, Too, Is Dust: Layers And Layers Of It Have Accumulated. Because If It Weren’t For Me, Lena And Alex Would Never Have Been Caught At All. I Told On Them. I Was Jealous. God Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned.

It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

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.

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

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.

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

You Have To Learn That People Are Always Listening.

Hunky Heroes, Rescuing Distressed Women, Captive Princesses, And Girls Without Wheels Since 1684. P. 450

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I'm Not Scared, If That's What You're Wondering. The Moment Of Death Is Full Of Sound And Warmth And Light Shooting Away, Arcing Up And Up And Up, And If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing... The Rest You Have To Find Out For Yourself.

And You Should Hear The Music. Incredible, Amazing Music, Like Nothing You've Ever Heard, Music That Almost Takes Your Head Off, You Know? That Makes You Want To Scream And Jump Up And Down And Break Stuff And Cry.

I Hate Skin; I Hate Bones And Bodies. I Want To Curl Up Inside Of Him And Be Carried There Forever.

What Is Beauty? Beauty Is No More Than A Trick; A Delusion; The Influence Of Excited Particles And Electrons Colliding In Your Eyes, Jostling In Your Brain Like A Bunch Of Overeager School Children, About To Be Released On Break. Will You Let Yourself Be Deluded? Will You Let Yourself Be Decieved? -"on Beauty And Falsehood," The New Philosophy, By Ellen Dorpshire

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

You Have To Understand. I Am No One Special. I Am Just A Single Girl. I Am Five Feet Two Inches Tall And I Am In-between In Every Way. But I Have A Secret. 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.

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.

For A Moment, My Heart Aches For Him. I Should Never Have Asked Him To Join Me Here; I Should Never Have Asked Him To Cross.

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.

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.

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

This Was What True Fear Was--that You Could Never Know Other People, Not Completely. That You Were Always Just Guessing Blind.

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

For A Second We Just Stand There In Silence. Then, Suddenly, Alex Is Back, Easy And Smiling Again. “i Left A Note For You One Time. In The Governor’s Fist, You Know?” I Left A Note For You One Time. It’s Impossible, Too Crazy To Think About, And I Hear Myself Repeating, “you Left A Note For Me?” “i’m Pretty Sure It Said Something Stupid. Just Hi, And A Smiley Face, And My Name. But Then You Stopped Coming.” He Shrugs. “it’s Probably Still There. The Note, I Mean. Probably Just A Bit Of Paper Pulp By Now.

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

They Haven't Killed Us Yet," I Say, And I Imagine That One Day I Will Fly A Plane Over Portland, Over Rochester, Over Every Fenced-in City In The Whole Country, And I Will Bomb And Bomb And Bomb, And Watch All Their Buildings Smoldering To Dust, And All Those People Melting And Bleeding Into Flame, And I Will See How They Like It. If You Take, We Will Take Back. Steal From Us, And We Will Rob You Blind. When You Squeeze, We Will Hit. This Is The Way The World Is Made Now.

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.

...into Hate, Into Refusal, Against Hope And Without Fear

Maybe He Sees It On My Face, That Fraction Of A Second When I Let My Guard Down, Because In That Moment His Expression Softens And His Eyes Go Bright As Flame And Even Though I Barely See Him Move, Suddenly He Has Closed The Space Between Us And He’s Wrapping His Warm Hands Over My Shoulders—fingers So Warm And Strong I Almost Cry Out—and Saying, “lena. I Like You, Okay? That’s It. That’s All. I Like You.” His Voice Is So Low And Hypnotic It Reminds Me Of A Song. I Think Of Predators Dropping Silently From Trees: I Think Of Enormous Cats With Glowing Amber Eyes, Just Like His.

That Is The Rule Of The Wilds: You Must Be Bigger And Stronger And Tougher. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

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.

They've Lied About Everything.-about The Fence, And The Existence Of Invalids, About A Million Other Things Besides. They Told Us The Raids Were Carried Out For Our Own Protection. They Told Us The Regulators Were Only Interested In Keeping The Peace. 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, Maight Also Be A Lie.

But Maybe You Carried Your Demons With You Everywhere, The Way You Carried Your Shadow.

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

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.

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

Then I Think Of The Dark, And The Lights, And The Roaring, And Juliet, And Before I Can Think Of Anything Else, I Fight The Final Few Steps To The Door And Step Out Into The Cold, Where The Rain Is Still Coming Down Like Shards Of Moonlight, Or Like Steel.

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

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.

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.

Willing Me To Understand: That People Should Be Sacrificed To Causes, That Beauty Can Be Built On The Backs Of The Dead.

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

Is This Freedom? Is It Happiness? I Don't Know. I Don't Care Anymore. It Is Different--it Is Being Alive.

Everytime He Brushes Me With His Fingers, Time Seems To Tether For A Second, Like It Is In Danger Of Dissolving. The Whole World Is Dissolving, I Decide, Except For Us. Us.

Fourth Period I Have "life Skills", Which Is What They Call Gym When You're Old Enough To Be Offended By Forced Physical Activity (elody Thinks They Should Call It Slavery Instead, For Accuracy).

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.

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..." ♥

I Guess That’s Just Part Of Loving People: You Have To Give Things Up. Sometimes You Even Have To Give Them Up.

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.

I Want To Be Healed And Whole And Perfect Again, Like A Misshapen Slab Of Iron That Comes Out Of The Fire Glowing, Glittering, Razor-sharp.

Here's Another Thing To Remember: Hope Keeps You Alive. Even When You're Dead, It's The Only Thing That Keeps You Alive.

At A Certain Point Your Brain Stops To Rationalize Things. At A Certain Point It Gives Up, Shuts Off, Shuts Down.

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.

I've Learned To Get Really Good At This - Say One Thing When I'm Thinking About Something Else, Act Like I'm Listening When I'm Not, Pretend To Be Calm And Happy When I'm Really Freaking Out. It's One Of The Skills You Perfect As You Get Older

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.

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

People Themselves Are Full Of Tunnels: Winding, Dark Spaces And Caverns; Impossible To Know All The Places Inside Of Them. Impossible Even To Imagine.

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

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.

Mice? Fine. Flying Mice? Not So Fine.

I Put My Forehead On His Collarbone, Place One Hand On His Chest. Its Rhythm Reassures Me: He Is Real, And He Is Now.

Stupid How The Mind Will Try To Distract Itself.

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.

You Should Only Fall In Love With People Who Will Fall In Love With You Back.

Falling In Love

My Parents Were Pretty Liberal, But They Were Still Parents. I Definitely Had My Teenage Rebellion.

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.

It's Surprisingly Nice Out Here, Peaceful And Pretty-strange To Be Standing In The Middle Of A Little Garden While Enclosed By The Massive Stone Walls Of The Prison, Like Being At The Exact Center Of A Hurricane, And Finding Peace And Silence In The Middle Of So Much Shrieking Damage.

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

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

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.

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

Everything Looks Stark And Vivid And Frozen, As Though Drawn Precisely And Outlined In Ink - Parents' Smiles Frozen, Camera Flashes Blinding, Mouths Open And White Teeth Glinstening, Dark Glossy Hair And Deep Blue Sky And Unrelenting Light, Everyone Drowning In Light - Everything So Clear And Perfect I'm Sure It Must Already Be A Memory, Or A Dream.

The Last Laugh, The Last Cup Of Coffee, The Last Sunset, The Last Time You Jump Through A Sprinkler, Or Eat An Ice-cream Cone, Or Stick Your Tongue Out To Catch A Snowflake. You Just Don't Know.

We're On The Other Side Of The Fence Now, Lena,' She Says, Tiredly, As She Passes. "don't You Get It? You Can't Tell Me What To Feel.

Holy Mother Of Lord Cocoa Puffs

I Thought If I Followed The Rules, Things Would Turn Out All Right. That's The Thing About The Cure, Isn't It? It Isn't Just About Deliria At All. It's About Order. A Path For Everyone. You Just Have To Follow It And Everything Will Be Okay. That's What The Dfa Is About. That's What I Belevied In-what I've Had To Believe In. Because Otherwise, It's Just...chaos.

That's The Easy Thing About Falling: There Is Only One Choice After That.

He Was Still In Love With You, Anyway.

Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music

He Makes Me Feel

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

I Get That Rush That Comes When You Know You're Doing Something Wrong And Are Getting Away With It, Like Stealing From The School Cafeteria Of Getting Tipsy At A Family Holiday Without Anyone Knowing It.

There's Always Some Relief In Giving Up.

Everything Ends, People Move On, They Don't Look Back. It's How They Should Be.

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.

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

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.

"kent?" I Say, And My Voice Seems To Have To Rise From Inside The Fog, Taking Forever To Get From My Brain To My Mouth. "yeah?" "promise You'll Stay Here With Me?" I Say. "i Promise," He Whispers.

My Wild, Uncured, Erratic, Incomprehensible Heart.

You See, We Didn't Know.

An Itchy Feeling Began To Work Its Way Through My Body, As Though A Thousand Mosquitoes Were Circulating Through My Blood, Biting Me From The Inside, Making Me Want To Scream, Jump, Squirm. I Ran.

It Amazes Me How Easy It Is For Things To Change, How Easy It Is To Start Off Down The Same Road You Always Take And Wind Up Somewhere New. Just One False Step, One Pause, One Detour, And You End Up With New Friends Or A Bad Reputation Or A Boyfriend Or A Breakup. It's Never Occurred To Me Before; I've Never Been Able To See It. And It Makes Me Feel, Weirdly, Like 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.

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

No Wonder The Regulators Decided On Segregation Of Boys And Girls: Otherwise, It Would Have Been A Nightmare, This Feeling Angry And Self-conscious And Confused And Annoyed All The Time.

Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison.

Po Flickered. "thank You?" It Repeated. "what Is That?" Liesl Thought. "it Means, You Were Wonderful," She Said. "it Means, I Couldn't Have Done It Without You.

As We're Standing There I Realize We're Almost Exactly The Same Height. We Must Look Like The Dark And Light Side Of An Oreo Cookie, And I Think How Just As Easily It Could Have Been The Other Way Around. She Could Be Blocking My Path; I Could Be Trying To Slip Around Her Into The Dark.

People Do Terrible Things, Sometimes, For The Best Reasons.

There Are No Happy Endings, Only Breaks In The Regular Action.

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

The Second Time My World Exploded, It Was Also Because Of A Word. A Word That Worked Its Way Out Of My Throat And Danced Onto And Out Of My Lips Before I Could Think About It, Or Stop It. The Question Was: Will You Meet Me Tomorrow? And The Word Was: Yes.

Summer Explodes Into Portland. In Early June The Heat Was There But Not The Color--the Green Were Still Pale And Tentative, The Morning Had A Biting Coolness--but By The Last Week Of School Everything Is Technicolor And Splash, Outrageous Blue Skies And Purple Thunderstorms And Ink-black Night Skies And Red Flowers As Brights As Spots Of Blood.

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.

I Feel A Flash Of Grief So Intense It Almost Makes Me Cry Out: Not For What I Lost, But For The Chances I Missed.

And I Guess That's When It Starts To Hit Me: The Whole Point Is, You Do What You Can.

But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

My Boyfriend's An Idiot," I Say As Soon As He Lurches Away."a Cute Idiot," Ally Corrects Me."that's Like Saying 'a Cute Mutant.' Doesn't Exist.

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.

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.

Suicide. A Sideways Word, A Word That People Whisper And Mutter And Cough: A Word That Must Be Squeezed Out Behind Cupped Palms Or Murmured Behind Closed Doors. It Was Only In Dreams That I Heard The Word Shouted, Screamed.

Nobody Ever Said Life Was Fair.

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

It's Like A Razor Blade Edging Its Way Through My Organs, Shredding Me, All I Can Think Is: It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

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.

I Remember Lena's Expression When He Knocked On The Door; And How Alex Had Looked At Her When She Finally Let Him Into The Storeroom. I Remember Exactly What He Was Wearing, Too, And The Mess Of His Hair, The Sneakers With Their Blue-tinged Laces. His Right Shoe Was Untied. He Didn't Notice. He Didn't Notice Anything But Lena.

Because?' I Prompt 'because I'm Sorry, But I Can't Help It, And I Really Need To Kiss You Right Now.

I’ve Been Trying So Hard Not To Think His Name, Not To Even Breathe The Idea Of Him

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

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

I Used To Think That's What Love Was: Knowing Someone So Well He Was Like A Part Of You.

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

I Have Had To Give Up So Much, So Many Selves And Lives Already. I Have Grown Up And Out Of The Rubble Of My Old Lives, Of Things And People I Have Cared For.

Everything I See And Touch Reminds Me Of Him, And So Everything I See And Touch Is Perfect.

Be Honest: Are You Surprised That I Didn't Realize Sooner? Are You Surprised That It Took Me So Long To Even /think/ The Word -- Death? Dying? Dead? Do You Think I Was Being Stupid? Naive? Try Not To Judge. Remember That We're The Same, You And Me. I Thought I Would Live Forever Too.

Finishing Books - And Leaving The World You've Created - Is Always A Kind Of Emotionally Wrenching Experience. I Usually Cry.

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

Maybe Next Time, But Probably Not.

Maybe Next Time

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

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.

For A Second I Think About How Easy It Would Be To Pass Back To The Other Side, To Walk Straight Into The Laboratories And Offer Myself Up To The Surgeons. You Were Right; I Was Wrong. Get It Out.

Maybe You Can Afford To Wait. Maybe For You There's A Tomorrow. Maybe For You There's One Thousand Tomorrows, Or Three Thousand, Or Ten, So Much Time You Can Bathe In It, Roll Around It, Let It Slide Like Coins Through You Fingers. So Much Time You Can Waste It. But For Some Of Us There's Only Today. And The Truth Is, You Never Really Know.

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.

Do The Other Kids Make Fun Of You? For How You Talk?' 'sometimes.' 'so Why Don't You Do Something About It? You Could Learn To Talk Differently, You Know.' But This Is My Voice. How Would You Be Able To Tell When I Was Talking?

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

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

And We Did, And It Wasn’t Bad. We Ate The Whole Stupid Can, We Were So Hungry. And When It Started To Get Dark You Pointed To The Sky, And Told Me There Was A Star For Every Thing You Loved About Me.” I’m Gasping, Feeling As Though I Am About To Drown; I’m Reaching For Him Blindly, Grabbing At His Collar.

The Priests And The Scientists Are Right About One Thing: At Our Heart, At Our Base, We Are No Better Than Animals.

I Guess There Are Some Things You Never Get Used To.

Nothing Has Ever Been So Painful Or Delicious As Being So Close To Him And Being Unable To Do Anything About It: Like Eating Ice Cream So Fast On A Hot Day You Get A Splitting Headache.

When I’m Running, There’s Always This Split Second When The Pain Is Ripping Through Me And I Can Hardly Breathe And All I See Is Color And Blur—and In That Split Second, Right As The Pain Crests, And Becomes Too Much, And There’s A Whiteness Going Through Me, I See Something To My Left, A Flicker Of Color […]—and I Know Then, Too, That If I Only Turn My Head He’ll Be There, Laughing, Watching Me, And Holding Out His Arms. I Don’t Ever Turn My Head To Look, Of Course. But One Day I Will. One Day I Will, And He’ll Be Back, And Everything Will Be Okay. And Until Then: I Run.

Most Things, Even The Greatest Movements On Earth, Have Their Beginnings In Something Small. An Earthquake That Shatters A City Might Begin With A Tremble, A Breath. Music Begins With A Vibration . . . And God Created The Whole Universe From An Atom No Bigger Than A Thought.

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.

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.

That’s What Made It So Frightening To The Lawmakers: Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

I Want To Know." His Words Are A Whisper, Barely Audible. "i Want To Know With You.

Like I've Been Sketched By An Amateur Artist: If You Don't Look Too Closely, It's All Right, But Start Focusing And All The Smudges And Mistakes Become Really Obvious.

What Glitters May Not Be Gold; And Even Wolves May Smile; And Fools Will Be Led By Promises To Their Deaths.

Are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?" "i Don't Know Any Other Way." "let Me Show You." And Then We're Kissing. Or At Least, I Think We're Kissing—i've Only Seen It Done A Couple Of Times, Quick Closed-mouth Pecks At Weddings Or On Formal Occasions. 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.

The House, The Pond, The Tree-it Was All Both Overwhelmingly Familiar And Different From What She Remembered-smaller And Shabbier, Somehow. It Was Like Waking Up To Find That Your Reflection In The Mirror Had Aged Overnight, Or Had Sprouted A New Mole: You Were Forced To Admit That Things Changed, Whether You Gave Them Permission To Or Not.

It Was All Very Strange, Mr. Gray Thought, As He Wiped The Coffee Canister Clean With A Sponge. Very, Very Mysterious. You Were Born; You Lived A Whole Life; And At The End, You Wound Up In A Coffee Canister. "ah, Well," He Said Out Loud Quietly. "that's Just The Way Things Are. Life's A Funny Business." Death, He Supposed, Was The Punch Line.

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. ... He Has Tipped Us Over, All Of Us In Our Teetering Expectancy, And Now We Are Pouring Toward Him, Coursing On A Wave Of Sound, Of Roaring Shouts And Applause. ... They Are The Moon; We Are A Tide, Their Tide, And Under Their Direction We Will Wipe Clean All The Sickness And Blight From The World.

It's Amazing How Close I Have Been, All This Time, To My Old Life. And Yet The Distance That Divides Me From It Is Vast.

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

Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

There Is So Much Fragility In Kissing, In Other People: It Is All Glass.

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

And Even Though I'm Standing In The Middle Of The Biggest Crowd I've Ever Seen In My Life, I Suddenly Feel Very Alone.

Quiet Through The Grave Go I; Or Else Beneath The Graves I Lie

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

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.

So Many Things Become Beautiful When You Really Look.

This Is The Language Of The World Before—a World Of Chaos And Confusion And Happiness And Despair—before The Blitz Turned Streets To Grids, Cities To Prisons, And Hearts To Dust.

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

Mary Bring Out Your Umbrella - The Sun Shines Down On This Fine, Fine Day But The Ashes Raining Down Forever Are Going To Turn Your Hair To Gray. Mary Keep Your Oars A-steady Sail Away On The Rising Flood Keep Your Candle At The Ready Red Tides Can't Be Told From Blood. - "miss Mary" (a Common Child's Clapping Game, Dating From The Time Of The Blitz), From Pattycake And Beyond: A History Of Play

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?

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.

The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things: It Kills You Both When You Have It And When You Don’t.

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.

And When I Wake Up It's Wonderful, Like I've Been Carried Quietly Onto A Calm, Peaceful Shore, And The Dream, And Its Meaning, Has Broken Over Me Like A Wave And Is Ebbing Away Now, Leaving Me With A Single, Solid Certainty. I Know Now.

Human Beings, In Their Natural State, Are Unpredictable, Erratic, And Unhappy. It Is Only Once Their Animal Instincts Are Controlled That They Can Be Responsible, Dependable, And Content.

We Leave Pippa Behind, Standing In The Dark, Teeming Bowels Of The Camp, While The Sun Begins To Stain The Sky Electric, And From All Sides The Guns Draw Closer.

It's Connecticut: Being Like The People Around You Is The Whole Point.

The Flip Side Of Freedom Is This: When You're Completely Free, You're Also Completely On Your Own.

Time Jumps. It Leaps. It Pours Away Like Water Through Fingers.

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge. That's What It Is: An Edge; A Razor. It Draws Up Through The Center Of Your Life, Cutting Everything In Two. Before And After. The Rest Of The World Falls Away On Either Side.

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Pierre Salinger

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