Lauren DeStefano famous quotes

Words like 'unputdownable' and 'irresistible' are simply not enough for Cat Winters's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. Days after finishing this story, it remains the first thought I have in the morning, and the thing that haunts me until I sleep.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Morning #Sleep #Cat

Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fire #Broken #Pieces

I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Brave #Listening

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fall #Autumn #Years

We writers are resilient souls.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Soul #Resilient

‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Ocean #Forever #Touching

We'll squeeze every second that we can from our lives, because we're young, and we have plenty of years to grow. We'll grow until we're braver. We'll grow until our bones ache and our skin wrinkles and our hair goes white, and until our hearts decide, at last, that it's time to stop.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Heart #White #Wrinkles

We accept gods that don't speak to us. We accept gods that would place us in a world filled with injustices and do nothing as we struggle. It's easier than accepting that there's nothing out there at all, and that, in our darkest moments, we are truly alone.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Struggle #World #Injustice

Childhood is a long, long road, from which that dark whispering forest of death seems an impossible destination.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Dark #Long #Childhood

We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Bye #Stronger #Lifetime

Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don't question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Kings #Firsts #Succeed

The madness of youth made me unafraid.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Youth #Madness #Made

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Moving #Ocean #Color

It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Mind #Three #Paper

Even the human race can't claim to be natural anymore. We are fake, dying things. How fitting that I would end up in this sham of a marriage.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Race #Fake #Dying

We can change so many times in our lives. We're born into a family, and it's the only life we can imagine, but it changes. Buildings collapse. Fires burn. And the next second we're someplace else entirely, going through different motions and trying to keep up with this new person we've become.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fire #Trying #Next

Perhaps... you love too fiercely.
-- Lauren DeStefano

Someday I'll tell you all of it," I say. "I'd like that," he says. "No," I say. "I promise you won't.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Promise #I Promise #Someday

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Skulls #Bird #Mind

I wanted to be rid of him," he says. He raises my chin with his thumb. "But not if it meant being rid of you. I climbed in beside you, and you put your head in my lap. You can't think I would have left you like that." "Look what it got you," I say. "Tea in bed and you here in front of me," he says. "It was a terrible decision, and I confess I'd make it again.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Decision #Tea

Ah, love. That’s what the world has lost. There’s no more love, only the illusion of it.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#World #Illusion #Lost

Cure" is one of the most precious words in the English language. It's a short word. A clean and simple word. But it isn't so easy a thing as it sounds. There are questions like: How will this affect us in ten years? In twenty? What will it do to our children? Our children's children?
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Children #Simple #Years

Eventually I realize that I am holding on to him just as tightly as he holds on to me. And here we are: two small dying things, as the world ends around us like falling autumn leaves.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Love #Fall #Autumn

Fate, I think, is a thief.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fate #Thinking #Thieves

Maybe it is desperation. Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Letting Go #Fall #People

I never wanted to live forever," she says. "I just wanted enough time.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Life #Forever #Enough Time

Living in a place like this, she must have learned how to see all the monsters that can hide a person.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Monsters #Persons

I'm suddenly finding it hard to know the difference between nightmares and consciousness.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Differences #Nightmare #Consciousness

I start trying to stay unconscious. The problem with this is that no amount of willpower can change the reality.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Reality #Trying #Willpower

You have a way of looking at things. You make it seem as though everything's going to be okay. I can't imagine a more dangerous thing to have than hope like yours.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Way #Imagine #Dangerous

She’s a commodity in a sea of broken girls.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #Sea #Broken

I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #Husband #Father

We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way that we would be free.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Daughter #Children #Way

When we're alive, life consumes us. But when we die, all of the color and the motion is gone so quickly, it's as though it can no longer stand to be wasted on us.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Color #Gone #Alive

It's quiet for a while, and then Rowan says; "We could talk now. We're alone out here. No walls." "There are always walls." I say.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Wall #Quiet

I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else--all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Sorry #Loss #Awful

Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Voice #Talking #Sky

We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Curiosity #Intention

Things will get worse before they get better.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Get Better

We figure out what death means when we're born, practically, and we live our whole lives in some kind of weird denial about it.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Mean #Denial #Kind

He says one word, nodding into the daylight. "Look." It's an astounding word. It's a gift.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Looks #Daylight #Nodding

There’s a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Done #Limits

I wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didn't trust it with my secrets.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Beautiful #Night #Secret

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Children #Heart #Perfect

He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Book #Thinking #Rose

There is a silence so great that I can hear the ice crystals cracking and falling from eyelashes of girls who will never blink again.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #Fall #Eyelashes

I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Ocean #Body #Ribbons

The months fall to shards at my feet.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fall #Feet #Months

A feeling can't kill you.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Feelings

I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Wall #Swim #Body

He sits next to me, careful to avoid my hair that's splayed out around my head like blood. A bullet to the forehead, boom, blond waves everywhere.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Hair #Blood #Bullets

I don't know if it was love or an illusion. I don't know if there's ever a way to be certain.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Way #Illusion #Certain

The thing about hope is that it doesn't go away even when it serves no purpose.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Going Away #Purpose

I wonder what it’s like for her, looking so much like a dead girl.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #Wonder

I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Clouds #Feelings #Would Be

I stare at her collarbone that's framed with lace, the hollow of her throat, her shoulders that rise with each rise with the weight of her next breath. We're fragile things. Our bones show through our skin. What would any god want with us?
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Skins #Want #Next

Every star has been set in the sky. We mistakenly think they were put there for us.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Stars #Thinking #Sky

Maybe what frightens us about the edge isn't our fear of morality, but the thoughts it leads us to have.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Morality

So many of the things I've wanted are the things I've been taught to fear.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Taught #Wanted

and I've always known it, the way I love a song I hear for the first time, even before I know all the words, the way I love my favorite color, and the way that the train would speed past my bedroom when it was very quiet and I'd feel it in my stomach rushing through me. I love you in a way that I've never felt needed to be said.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Song #Love You #Past

He gathers me up and I'm weightless before he sets me on the railing. He's the only thing keeping me from falling back, out of the reach of daylight. I'm not afraid of falling. I don't fear the sky beyond the train tracks like I did before. I can go anywhere just so long as it's with him.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Fall #Sky #Long

Forget who you are and what you think is there, and you'll discover things that don't exist to be known.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Forget #Who You Are

Humans are the absolute worst thing to happen to this planet.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Planets #Worst #Humans

A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Strange #Imagine #Said

But I know all the things you're too sweet to know.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Sweet

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Writing #Trying #Stories

Dystopian, by definition, promises a darker story.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Promise #Stories #Definitions

Most dystopian, classic and contemporary, paints a future world that puts a twist on present society - a future world that could plausibly happen.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Twists #World #Classic

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Teacher #Writing #Ideas

You can't be afraid. You can be sad if you like. You can be angry. But it's the fear that'll freeze you in place.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Like You #Angry

I don’t have too many books, I have too little shelving.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Book #Littles

They never exhale, the trees; on a very windy day, they rustle and inhale, and then the leaves and the branches all tremble as though something means to strangle the life from them. The sky watches on. The world is filled with anticipation, as if to wonder if this day will be a great day, or a horrible day, or the last day.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Mean #Sky #Tree

There is no choice for him but to believe. He has nothing left to give in offering.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Believe #Offering #Giving

Home?' I say. It's a word that can mean anywhere and nowhere.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Home #Mean

Maybe hope isn't the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Love Is #Dangerous #Persons

I miss something I never even had.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Missing

I like the idea of something greater than us. We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions. We are no closer to perfection than we were one hundred years ago, or five hundred.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Years #Ideas #Perfection

She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Soldier #Forgiving #Spite

Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Oxygen #Drink

I was born into a world that was already dying; I belong to it.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Dying #World #Born

She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Majesty #Hurricanes #Explosions

I think humans have always been desperate. I think it has always been about doing something awful if it might help, when the only other option is death. Maybe that's what being a parent is supposed to feel like.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Parent #Might

Hope, that risky, illustrious thing. It should have gone extinct by now, but we keep it alive.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Gone #Alive #Should

Even things that aren't broken can be fixed.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Broken #Fixed

I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Understanding #Horrible

To die trying would be better than to die without purpose.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Trying #Would Be #Purpose

I've loved you since the day I stole the atlas for you," Gabriel says, because he thinks I'm asleep.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Thinking #Atlas #Gabriel

There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #World #Body

There's a world out there that nobody has bothered to promise her.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Promise #World #Bothered

Give me time" "For you, always.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Giving

There is a dark place calling to me, but I will not go just yet. I know I can't return from it.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Dark #Calling #Return

When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Summer #Mother #Book

Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Dying #Remember #Born

Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Rivers #Broken #Somewhere Out There

A party in the orange grove. The pain on Linden's face is immediate. I am unwavering. He has cost me more pain than I will ever be able to repay.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Pain #Party #Orange

Poor kid,' Jenna says, and rolls her eyes toward me for a moment. Then she returns to her book. 'She doesn't even understand what kind of place this is.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Book #Eye #Kids

And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Trying

My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Years #Worry #Dungeons

On tiptoes the redhead wouldn't even reach my shoulders; she is clearly too young to be a bride. And the willowy girl is too forlorn. And I am too unwilling. Yet here we are.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Girl #Tiptoes #Forlorn

For males twenty-five is the fatal age. For women it's twenty. We are all dropping like flies.
-- Lauren DeStefano

#Age #Twenties #Males