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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.

-Lauren Oliver

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You Have To Understand.

Lauren Oliver

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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.

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It's Too Late. I've Seen Things...i've Lost Things You Can't Understand.

This Is The Strange Way Of The World, That People Who Simply Want To Love Are Instead Forced To Become Warriors.

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.

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.

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

But You Can Build A Future Out Of Anything. A Scrap, A Flicker. The Desire To Go Forward, Slowly, One Foot At A Time. You Can Build An Airy City Out Of Ruins.

My Heart Shoots Into My Throat Every Time I Think I See His Loping Walk, Or Catch Sight Of Some Floppy Brown Hair On A Boy - But It's Never Him, And Each Time It Isn't, My Heart Does A Reverse Trajectory Down Into The Very Pit Of My Stomach.

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

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 Close My Eyes. An Image Flashes—emerging From The Van With Julian After Our Escape From New York City; Believing, In That Moment, That We Had Escaped The Worst, That Life Would Begin Again For Us. Instead Life Has Only Grown Harder.

You Have To Understand. I Wasn't Just Thinking Of Me. I Was Thinking Of Her, Too.

Thinking Of Her

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.

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.

Don't Worry About What You're Writing Or Whether It's Good Or Even Whether It Makes Sense.

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.

And In That Moment, The Wordless Thing Passed Between Us, The Thing That Wasn't Quite Love But Was So Close I Could Believe In It Sometimes.

All Of You, Wherever You Are: In Your Spiny Cities, Or Your One-bump Towns. Find It, The Hard Stuff, The Links Of Metal And Chink, The Fragments Of Stone Filling Your Stomach. And Pull, And Pull, And Pull. I Will Make A Pact With You: I Will Do It If You Will Do It, Always And Forever. Take Down The Walls.

I'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again

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.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

His Secret Name, Which Belongs To Me, And To Him, And To No One Else.

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

Are You Sure You Can't Dematerialize? Not Even A Little?" "i'm Sure.

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.

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

Chance. Stupid, Dumb, Blind Chance. Just A Part Of The Strange Mechanism Of The World, With Its Fits And Coughs And Starts And Random Collisions.

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.

Everyone Just Wasting Time Because They Have So Much Of It To Waste, Minutes Slipping By On Who's With Who And Did You Hear.

In One Of The Tents, Julian Is Sleeping. And In Another: Alex

Once Mo Had Closed The Gates, He Returned To His Little Stone Hut, And His Half-eaten Sandwich Of Butter And Canned Sardines, And His Mug Of Thick Hot Chocolate, Which Every Night He Poured Carefully Into A Thermos Labeled Coffee.

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

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.

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.

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.

Fred Is Officially The Mayor Of Portland Now.

There Are Some Losses We Never Get Over.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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