Lauren DeStefano > Quotes

“Fate, I think, is a thief.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“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, Wither

“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, Wither

“I'll tell you something about true love. There's no science to it. It's as natural as the sky.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Did you tell freedom hello for me?”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“The trick was looking past the illusion, because the exit was never as far away as it seemed.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“who once had dreams of saving the world, now laughs at anyone who
tries.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Tell freedom I said hello.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Love is not enough to keep any of us alive.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“The world seems so clean if you only looked up.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“You've been captive for so long that you don't even realize you want freedom anymore.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“She smiles at our husband as she moves, and he blushes, overcome by her beauty. But I know what her smile really means...Her smile is her revenge.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“So how long do you think it’ll be?” he says. “Before the next hurricane comes along to take you home.”
“Can I tell you my biggest fear?” I say.
“Yes. Tell me.”
“That it will be a very windless four years.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Real’ is a dirty word in this place.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“As I go, I hear her screaming my name, in a brutal, bloody way, like she's being murdered, which maybe she is. But slowly. It will take her six years to die.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Tell freedom I said hello.'
'If I happen to see it, I will.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I can almost see what Gabriel meant when he asked, 'What has the free world got that you can’t get here?'
Almost.

Freedom, Gabriel. That’s what you can’t get here.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“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, Wither

“He kissed back, all the pages spread out around us like riddles waiting to be solved. Let them wait. Let my genes unravel, my hinges come loose. If my fate rests in the hands of a madman, let death come and bring its worse. I'll take the ruined craters of laboratories, the dead trees, this city with ashes in the oxygen, if it means freedom. I'd sooner die here than live a hundred years with wires in my veins.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“But instead of tears, when I press my face against the pillow, a horrible, primal scream comes out of me. It's unlike anything I thought myself capable of. Rage, unlike anything I've ever known.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“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, Wither

“Tell me about yourself."

"Myself?" He looks confused.

"Yes," I say, patting the mattress.

"You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me.

"Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything."

"Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I lost everyone I loved," I tell him. I wait for him to look at me, and then I add, "The day I met you.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“...maybe hope isn't such a bad thing. Maybe it's what keeps us together.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“Times like this, when she slips her hand into mine and holds on tight, and our husband becomes just a shadow in the doorway.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I've done it all before, I tell myself, and I can do it again. Trust is the strongest weapon.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“What have you done? What have you given up?'
So many things, Cecily. More than you know.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“And here we are: two small dying things, as the world ends around us like falling autumn leaves.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I wonder if she has figured out that I'll never love Linden, especially not in the way she does, and that he'll never love anyone the way he loves her. I wonder if she realizes, despite all her efforts to train me, that I can never take her place.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Do you know what my father used to say?" I ask her. "He used to say that songs had a heart. A crescendo that can make all your blood rush from your head to your toes.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“My head is my favorite swimming pool.”
― Lauren DeStefano

“I can hear my brother's voice in my head. Your problem is that you're too emotional.
But how can I not be emotional, Rowan? How can I not care?”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I used to have only one name; it used to mean something.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“It's the silence I imagine in the rest of the world, the silence of an endless ocean and uninhabitable island, a silence that can be seen from space.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“Momentum,' She repeats. 'You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“The only characters I ever don't like are ones that leave no impression on me. And I don't write characters that leave no impression on me.”
― Lauren DeStefano

“And then I wonder, does my brother think of me this way? We entered this world together, one after the other, beats in a pulse. But I will be first to leave it. That's what I've been promised. When we were children, did he dare to imagine an empty space beside him where I then stood giggling, blowing soap bubbles through my fingers?

When I die, will he be sorry that he loved me? Sorry that we were twins?

Maybe he already is.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“Once upon a time there were two parents, two children, and a brick house with lilies in the yard. The parents died, the lilies wilted. One child disappeared. Then the other." Pg 225”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“You’re insane, you know that?” he says. “It’s the only thing keeping me afloat,” I say.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“I shake my head, watching snow tumble and swirl from an all-white sky. The world seems so clean if you only look up”
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

“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, Wither

“Because even if the lie is beautiful, the truth is what you face in the end”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“‎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, Wither

“There's a sort of dead passion in him. A spark that, had he more years to live, would be a wildfire.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever

“I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.”
― Lauren DeStefano, Fever