Ellen Hopkins famous quotes

HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so WHY push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is WHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway, WHEN did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person WHO lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you - WHAT is perfect.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Two #Creating #People

Addiction is rarely conquered alone.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Addiction

Love means holding on to someone just as hard as you can because if you don't, one blink and they might disappear...forever.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Forever #Might

Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Children #Believe #Years

Life is all about change. If it were static, think about how boring it would be. You can't be afraid of it, and you can't worry that you'll mess things up. You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Life #Change #Hope

Forgiveness is easy. Trust is much more difficult, and should never be given lightly.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Easy #Should #Given

Sometimes the little things in life mean the most.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Thankful #Mean #Littles

You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Goodbye #Love You #Self

I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Hate #Lying #Past

Learning by example is valid, but when you have the information to know that turning in a certain direction can lead you to a very wrong place, most of the "blame" is on the individual.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Example #Information #Blame

Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Memories #Wine #Bottles

I carry a strong anti-drug message, and it's important young people especially hear a "real" story about addiction and how it affects not only the addict but also the people who love him/her, rather than "just say no."
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Strong #Real #People

Anger is a valid emotion. It's only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don't want to do.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Anger #Want #Emotion

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Book #Writing #Character

The wind kicks in stronger, branches clatter. Or maybe skeletons. Bones of abandonment. Ghosts that will never be.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Skeletons #Wind #Stronger

I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Sex #Writing #Emotional

Or might the soul clone itself, create a perfect imitation of something yet to be defined? In this way, can a reflection be altered?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Reflection #Perfect #Soul

In my books my characters experience things as they are. My books allow youth an honest look at important issues affecting them. As adults we want to believe things like sex abuse or drug use are not happening anymore, or happening less and less, but that's not the case and we need to acknowledge that. We can't make life prettier for youth, but we can arm them.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Sex #Believe #Book

...what good would it do to shutter your windows, never dream of rainbows or find hope in promises? Why choose to walk away rather than hold your ground and fight for love?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Dream #Fighting #Rainbow

Many readers share their stories with me and if one speaks to me (or if the same theme keeps coming at me), I will research it and decide if it would make a good book. But, straight down to it, people inspire me.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Book #People #Inspire

This time when we kiss, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel it in my heart. And I realize love isn't about sex. It's about connection.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Sweet #Sex #Heart

I think parents should know what their children are reading, and if they truly object, they should tell their kids why, rather than summarily removing a book from their possession.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Children #Book #Reading

It [death] chokes you, gags you, but you have to pretend that you're doing just fine, not trembling with this fear because the end is close.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Choke #Ends #Trembling

he sucked the nectar from her heart like a famished butterfly.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Heart #Butterfly #Nectar

Torch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Real #Lying #Book

...life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Safe #Want

Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound. Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light. Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeapordy. Pray you could somehow stop uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Memories #Cutting

Taking no chances means wasting your dreams..
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Dream #Mean #Chance

imperfections create character...
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Character #Imperfection

When you've only got one little shimmer of sunshine, you capture it best you can.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Sunshine #Littles #Shimmer

Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way. Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn. And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Beautiful #Love You #Men

I want the part of you that you refuse to give.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Giving #Want #Refuse

Yesterday influences today, thus creates tomorrow.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Yesterday #Today #Tomorrow

Death Is only the easy way out if you are the one who dies.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Way #Easy #Easy Way

Don't you know? We're connected by an invisible chain. It's very long, very light. But also very strong. It can't rust. Can't break. And the only thing that can sever it is if you ever stop loving me.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Strong #Light #Long

One Time, One Day between Davie and Roberta , I asked my mom why she persisted, kept on having baby after baby, She looked at me, at a spot between my eyes, blinking like I had suddenly fallen crazy. She paused before answering as if to confide would legitimize my fears. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the chair. I touched her hand and I thought she might cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role. I decided if it was my role, I'd rather disappear.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mom #Baby #Crazy

And this is a kiss like none before, a kiss that could overcome the dark of deep space night. It's a falling star, flame, ice. It's pure as water from a snow-fed mountain spring. This is what you dream a kiss to be. To have a kiss just like this each and every day! How satisfying life would be.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Dream #Stars #Spring

I can see why she feels left behind. Maybe even discarded. Is that why she refuses to accept my love and return it? Afraid that love doesn't last? Doesn't really exist? Afraid if her own father can withdraw his love (or at least the manifestation of his love), that maybe she somehow isn't worthy of the emotion?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Father #His Love #Lasts

But Hey, Guess What Crazy means I'm not liable for my actions. So screw it, I'll go home, propped up on Prozac against distractions
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Crazy #Home #Mean

Not exactly. I see a girl who wants to present someone special to the world. Someone beautiful. The pinnacle of beauty. But she has lost her hold on reality. Real beauty isn’t thin. It isn’t size two, unless you happen to be four foot ten. What the world sees when they look at you is someone who believes self-worth is all about how she looks, and that very often means that what she’s missing is love. Not someone else’s love. But love and respect for herself.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Beautiful #Girl #Real

The only thing about myself I know for sure is that I don't know anything.
-- Ellen Hopkins

When I was little, my friends would gush over wedding gowns and honeymoons. But I saw too many people flush decades together down the toilet over money or kids or meaningless flings. My own parents chose to stay married, which I think is rather funny, since they show about as much affection for each other as pit bulls in a ring. Tying the knot means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Kids #Thinking

I don't need more pain in my life. Why did I invite it in? Do I have to feel pain to believe I feel anything at all?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Believe #Needs

A Problem Is really just a solution in need of a reason to exist.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Needs #Problem #Reason

Fear is a better friend than you, who feel nothing, beneath the weight of my pain.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Weight #Feels

hindsight is gained through experience
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Hindsight

Except when it comes to Mom. She is, and always has been, the driving force in this family. And sometimes that means driving us head-on, no possible change of course, into a wall.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mom #Wall #Mean

Then I said it. He said it too. I love you. And everything that went before meant nothing.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Love You #Said

She's no longer afraid to die. What she's afraid of is living, accepting the status quo.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Accepting #Status Quo

Starving for a high, a place to hang out inside my own head. Starving for touch. Pain, even. A way to feel. I need to feel.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Needs #Way

He's solid. "You're fractured." He's hopeful. "You're hopeless." He's always there. "You're half there." He's faithful. "You're so not." He's giving. "You're afraid to give." He's honest. "You lie all the time." He's loving. "You don't know how to love.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Lying #Giving #Hopeful

I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Evil #Accepted #Not Sure

I wish I were worthy of his love. (Any love.)I should tell him to run. But I can't. I need him.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Running #Wish #Needs

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Beautiful #Mom #Morning

It's probably weird to think about an addiction like it's a sentient being, but that's how it feels. Like it's something living inside you. Something you can't get rid of because killing it means killing you.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Thinking #Addiction

It is hard to believe that something that seems so permanent was once so different. Change. I guess that really is one thing you can count on...
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Believe #Different #Hard To Believe

And how can it be he's so in love with me? To grow up without love, and still have so much inside?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Growing Up #Grows #Stills

The truth is, I don't have a real clue what love is - how to find it, how to give it. Once upon a time I thought I knew.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Real #Love Is #Giving

Never say never, dear. You might be surprised at what you can do, should circumstances dictate
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Might #Never Say Never #Should

Communication Was never big in my house. We sat together over dinner, but the only sound you'd hear was crunching and chewing and the little ones asking for more, please. We lived, all boxed up in invisible containers. We hardly knew the people we called sister or father. Jackie and I were the exceptions to that rule.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Father #Communication #People

Defiance rose up like vomit. I swung back and yelled, "Don't ever do that again!
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Rose #Defiance

I felt angry, frustrated. I felt I didn't belong, not in my church, not in my home, not in my skin. Amidst the chaos, i felt alone, in need of a friend instead of a sister, someone detached from my world. The "woman's role" theory disgusted me. I would soon be a woman, and I knew I could never perform as expected. I was tired of my mom's submission to her religion, to her husband's sick quest for an heir, to his abuse. I was sick of my dad, of reaching for him as he fell farther away from us and into the arms of Johnnie WB.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mom #Husband #Dad

Yeah, I know getting high isn't so smart. Ask me if I care.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Smart #Getting High #Care

Perfection I've lived with the pretense of perfection for seventeen years. Give my room a cursory inspection, you'd think I have OCD. But it's only habit and not obsession that keeps it all orderly. Of course, I don't want to give the impression that it's all up to me.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Thinking #Years #Giving

I never went to Albuquerque expecting to find love. I thought it had found me there, followed me home. I never came home expecting to lose love in the space of one brief telephone call. Is it always so short-lived?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Home #Space #Finding Love

Just keep on shining that light. The rest will take care of itself.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Light #Shining #Care

The stars shine as they always do. Same stars. Same sky. Only I am different.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Stars #Sky #Shining

That's what I'll be. A silhouette, rarely seen, and yet believed in.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Silhouettes

I wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Spring #Long #Mind

I mean, if you're gonna purposely lose your mind, you want to get it back some day. Don't you? Okay, maybe not.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Mind #Want

When You Weren’t Looking The child became a woman, though she wasn’t ready to. Don’t ask how or why. Those questions are not important ones. Can’t you see you didn’t care enough to notice?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Children #Important #Care

Love is more than blind. It’s brain-dead.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Love Is #Brain #Blind

When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Life #Taken #Games

I know I can't stay here forever
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Forever

HAPPY EVER AFTER is a concept I'll never believe in. I would be content to sample some little taste of happiness today, tonight, right now. Though I know without a doubt that tomorrow will come saturated with pain. Life is like that. At least my life. And honestly, I cant think of anyone whose life is any different. The price tag for joy is misery. [...]
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Believe #Thinking

As I thought about that, I had to wonder: What will we know better about tomorrow? Who cares? Hindsight is useless.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Who Cares #Useless #Tomorrow

Was the fun in the fall?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Fun #Fall

I mean, who wants to trudge through life, doing everything just right? Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Dream #Mean #Want

Every high has an equal, measurable low.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Lows #Equal

Cleansed, chlorinated to the point of chemical peel, sore muscles relieved, I felt almost human again. Tiptoe to my room, up a darkened hall, past closed doors, I wondered if I'd ever feel completely human again.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Past #Doors #Rooms

Kaeleigh, queen of passive, all the time saying no, but not strong enough to mean it.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Strong #Queens #Mean

A whole big, giant world full of men. Men with blue eyes. Brown eyes. Green eyes. And indescribable shades in between. Tall men. Short men. Skinny men. Built men. And all combinations thereof. Nice men (so I've heard, but never really seen). Mean men. Decent men, indecent. And who knows which is the best kind to have, to hold, to love? I'd say, with so many men in the world, it would pay to sample a few. Scratch that. More than a few. Lots and lots. And then a few more. And maybe, after years of research, you might find one worth not throwing back. But hey, the fun is in the fishing.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Fun #Nice #Mean

He has built a pedestal for her so tall that she is afraid to be lifted atop it, because to fall would mean certain death. But oh, she would rise far, far beyond fear and be held by arms so strong, and love so pure, that falling would not be an option.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Strong #Fall #Mean

Everyone's afraid of everybody else...maybe because we're all afraid of ourselves.
-- Ellen Hopkins

And the thought of that makes me want to open a vein, experience pain, know I'm alive, despite this living death.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Pain #Veins #Alive

Love is for children and dimwads.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Children #Love Is

Grown up? Me? I suppose I have. Killing things, and almost killing myself, must have changed me some, after all.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Killing #Changed

As the old saying goes, "sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mean #Loving Someone #Sometimes

But then, my entire life is bullshit. The best things in it have vanished, ghosts. Ghosts I'll admit I created.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Bullshit #Ghost #Life Is

Spilling a Secret What its size, will have varying consequences. It’s not possible to predict what will happen if you open the gunnysack, let the cat escape. A liberated feline might purr on your lap, or it might scratch your eyes out. You can’t tell until you loosen the knot. Do you chance losing a friendship, if that friend’s well-being will only be preserved by betraying sworn-to silence trust? Once the seam is ripped, can it be mended again? And if that proves impossible, will you be okay when it all falls to pieces?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Fall #Eye #Cat

Disappointment Can do a couple things. It can drop you into a giant sucking sinkhole of depression, a place you have to fight to climb out of. Or it can trigger an epic mania to overcome the odds and transform failure into success. Say you swing as high as the chains will take you because you seek the thrill of flight, and on the up- kick, you lose your seat. Injury is likely. But if you worry about falling down, and never chance "up," the sky will remain forever out of reach.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Couple #Disappointment #Fall

Not Exactly True That skin hate is dead. There will never be color blindness in a culture of fear. But when you live afraid of your neighbor, the monster you should most walk in terror of thrives. It starts as a little thing, small enough to burrow into your pores, take up excruciating residence in the dark recesses of your brain. Its name is paranoia, and it spreads like an oil spill, there in the shadows, chokes your humanity. Threatens your soul.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Hate #Dark #Color

Light That's how I feel- like the winter-fringed breeze might scoop me up into its wings, fly away with me trapped in its feathered embrace. I am a snowflake. A wisp of eiderdown, liberated from gravity. My body is light. Ephemeral. My head is light. I want to sway beneath the weight of air, dizzy with thought. Light filters through my closed eyelids. The sun, chasing shadows, tells me I'm not afloat in dreams.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Dream #Winter #Wings

At Last It's a perfect winter day. No wind. No Arctic freeze. Cloudless azure sky. A day to fly. Snow drapes the mountain like ermine, fabulous feather- light powder coaxing me to flee the confines of my room, brave the mostly plowed road up to the closest ski resort. To run from the cloying silence connected Mom and Dad, into encompassing stillness far away from city dirt and noise Far above suburban gridlock. Far beyond the grasp of home.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Mom #Running #Dad

Fake Is that what you are if you choose to improve the basic not perfect you?
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Perfect #Fake #Not Perfect

There will never be color blindness in a culture of fear.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Color #Culture #Blindness

And almost instantly, Daddy made everything seem just fine. Even when it wasn't.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Daddy #Made #Fine

Crank, You See isn't any ordinary monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving its tentacles not just around you, but through you, squeezing not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling until you try to get away. Try, and you hunger for it grasping clutch, the way its tendrils prop you up, your need intensifying exponentially every minute you refuse to admit its being (p.469)
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Octopus #Trying #Monsters

I never actually plan sequels. They demand to be done.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Done #Demand #Plans

Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.
-- Ellen Hopkins

#Heart #Speechless