Quotes by Young Adult Authors

See the stars, Lily?"She sighed, surrendering. "Of course.""Do you think they can see the sun coming up?""I don't know. Probably?""Do you think they're scared?""They're burning balls of gas, Calder.""Oh, c'mon. Where's the poet in you?"She exhaled, and I sensed her smile. "I see. Well, in that case, yes. They've finally come home. They are triumphant in their midnight kingdom. But the enemy approaches. They have the numbers on their side, but the enemy is bigger, stronger, with a history of winning that goes back to the dawn of time. They're definitvely terrified."I nodded. She understood my analogy."But they don't run, Calder.

It’s really hard to deny a kid who’s father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn’t about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad.” His heart twisted, and he whispered, “When I think of him...I don’t remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next...just gone.” Nan nodded. “Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life.

Why was everyone so interested in her now? When it was too late to change anything? What was the point?

I looked around at the rooms that I did not see as rooms but more as a landscape for my emotions, a biography of memory.

I read nonfiction."She reared back as if offended.

By dint of waiting, he hoped his heart would wear out and stop beating. What other way was there to stop loving someone?

I pat the brand new twenty-seven inch Macintosh computers Mr. Foley brought us. 'These boxes alone should make both of us scream like it's Christmas morning! Snap out of it. Santa came! Now we get to play with all of our toys!

All things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.

Gregory: Go to hell.Dane: I'd be glad to leave you in it.

It turns out that home is not mostly a place. Home is someone putting her arms around you and saying the words your heart longs to hear: always and everywhere.

I stood there feeling the lightness of my bones, knowing now this was not only lack of sleep that had transformed my bones into feathers, but my body's recognition that soon I would be leaving this place I had inhabited for one year, this place made entirely of grief.

That’s when I realized it. I liked this girl. A lot. I liked her super-moist double chocolate chip cupcakes. I liked how kind and patient she was with the guests, the way her forehead crinkled when she was thinking about a problem. I liked her low, soft voice and that long ribbon of platinum-blond hair. I liked the way she looked at the world, as if it were an okay place, where good things were actually possible. 

Forgiveness is freedom. It's something you do for yourself - to keep who you are intact. Now that I think about it - in some ways, it's kind of a selfish act.

When you have the same dream over and over again, your brain is trying to solve a problem. It knows there's an answer.

She should have died on that day. Perhaps, in a way, she had.

Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.”“And the other half?”He had her now. “You have to choose the right side.”“Your side, you mean.” She bristled.“No, the losing side.”“What?”“Always choose the weaker side.”“Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor.“Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.”“If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned.“It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.”“You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all.“It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.”“And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!

Everyone has scars, they just aren’t as visible as yours.

I heard silence, silence infinite as the bottom of the ocean, a silence that sealed.

I was so happy when I found out the wounds you’d inflicted weren’t serious, that you had stopped.” “Yes, I stopped. Barry, all of you, see what I did as this suicide attempt. But I didn’t want to die. I only wanted my mom to hear me. To come find me. To see that I was sad. To help me, I guess. I just didn’t have it in me to tell her what I needed. And fine, I get now that she couldn’t read my mind.” He wiped his eyes again. “But I didn’t get it then. I’m so mad at myself. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t just tell her? That I didn’t have the capacity to ask her for anything.

He felt the muscle of his heart rip apart, and there was nothing he could do but watch it bleed all over the dreams he had never meant to have.

I believed I could identify the scent of the sky as I stood there, a blue menthol fragrance similar to the scent of seawater that sprayed into my face when I first dove into the ocean. That initial scent was much more subtle than the ocean's heavy, fishy aroma; it was a whiff of salt and mint, just as I approached the water on a dive, that warned me that a more powerful scent would soon enter my nose. It was the scent I dreamed in. And it was the scent of that spring sky as I stood in my yard.

How can you know if you’re normal when you’re always alone? You have no one to compare yourself to. I mean, I have my mom and dad, and I’m pretty normal compared to them. But then… a lot of people are normal compared to them

When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the words of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light.

If there was one thing that life has taught me, it’s to accept the most foolish and unthinkable happiness.