Ann Liang > Quotes

“Yes, is the obvious answer. I do hate you. I hate everything about you. I hate you so much that whenever I’m around you, I can barely think straight. I can barely even breathe.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“I’d rather be the villain who lives to the end than the hero who winds up dead”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Why is it me? Why do you always single me out?"

"Because," he says quietly. "You're the only person worth paying attention to.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“For ten years I thought I was preparing to destroy you, when really I was preparing to love you.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“You were right, Sadie Wen. I am completely, helplessly obsessed with you.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn’t Find You

“When you care about someone, you want to be inconvenienced—you wouldn’t mind being
inconvenienced by them every day for the rest of your life. That’s what love is. That’s all love really is.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“I guess my point is that I do believe in love. Really. I'm just not convinced that kind of love could ever happen to me.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“Descartes was wrong, you know, when he said, 'To live well, you must live unseen.' To live well, you must learn to see yourself first. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“You have to understand...If you knew the effect you had on me, how often I think about you, the things I would do for you...I wouldn't stand a chance against you ever again. You would have taken everything from me," he goes on in a rush, like the words are burning him from within, like he has to get it out before the pain becomes overwhelming. "Not just a debating championship or some points for a test or a fancy award or a spot in a competition—but my whole heart. My pride. God, my sanity. It would all be over. You would annihilate me.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“And everything about this moment is so lovely and so fragile in its loveliness that I’m almost afraid to hold it. Afraid that the spell will break.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“He pauses, leans closer to inspect the displays. Reaches out, as if to grab something, then retracts his hand. And starts walking all over again."

After ten minutes of this, I lose my patience. "Are you here to select bread, or a future wife? What's taking so long?"

HIs smile is sharp, taunting. "The latter.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“You have to prove yourself over and over, and when the glory for your most recent achievement expires, as it must, as it always will, you have to start again, but with more eyes trained on you, more people waiting for the day your talent withers, and your discipline weakens, and your charm wears away. Success is only meant to be rented out, borrowed in small doses at a time, never to be owned completely, no matter what price you're willing to pay for it.”
― Ann Liang, I Am Not Jessica Chen

“I think you're obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“I didn’t know you had such a praise kink.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“We turn pain into a story, because then it has a purpose. Then, we reason, there was a point to it all along. But sometimes pain is just pain, and there’s nothing particularly noble about clinging to it.”
― Ann Liang, I Am Not Jessica Chen

“There’s something strangely intimate about calling someone in the dark. It’s like listening to your favorite song in the middle of a crowded subway; the world narrows down to just you and this voice in your ear, while everyone else around you goes about their lives, completely oblivious. It feels sacred. Like a secret.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“Of course, if you...if you don't want to," he says into the silence, sliding his gaze away from me, "I can accept that. I won't bring it up again. I know I'm not....I know what I'm like. That I'm infuriating. And selfish. And cruel. I know I'm not perfect the way my brother is, and I manage to disappoint my parents every time. It's okay if you don't choose me, really—I never expected to be the first choice. I wouldn't blame you‚—"

"I do choose you."

He doesn't seem to hear me at first. He's still talking, rambling really, the words flowing out like rainwater. "I can't always say pretty things, and sometimes I tease you when really I just want you to look my way, and—wait." He stops. Even his breath freezes in his throat. "What...did you just say? Say it again."

"I choose you," I say quietly, glad for the shadows concealing my flushed cheeks. For the support of the wall behind me.
"You will always be my first choice, Julius Gong.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“You're still a kid, you know.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“But aren’t small things exactly what friendships are made up of? Frayed string bracelets and late-night texts and compilations of your favorite songs? When you take those things away, what do you have left?”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“Maybe I’ll always be scared. Maybe the fear of getting hurt, of being left alone,
will never truly go away. But even if it’s my default setting, I can fight it. So many beautiful things lie on the other side of fear.
Like love.
Like this.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“Because beneath my apprehension is the stronger, deeply ingrained need to be liked. To be accepted. To be forgiven. To be recognized as good. I'll do anything to redeem myself.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“If I'm not swimming as hard as I can, feet thrashing at the waves, I'm drowning.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“This whole time, it's been you, and I didn't even realize. In retrospect, it makes sense, doesn't it? In order to beat the enemy, you have to understand them intimately. You have to observe them, learn their weaknesses, memorize their every word, track their progress, predict their next move. For ten years, I thought I was preparing to destroy you, when really I was preparing to love you.

All of which is to say I hope this finds you.
And I hope you find me too.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“It's nothing like the way they describe it in the movies, like all the stars aligning and fireworks exploding across an ink-black sky. It feels both quieter and bigger than that, as simple as coming home and as dizzying and all-encompassing as the wind rushing in around us. It feels like a thousand banished and buried moments have been building up to this - to us alone and untethered and weak with wanting - and maybe they have.”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun

“Because there aren’t thousands of books and poems and movies out there to describe exactly what I’m feeling, or lyrically beautiful songs for me to cry to and sing along with in the car. There’s no guidebook on how to survive this kind of fallout, no prescribed remedy to soothe this particular kind of pain. Romantic breakups are romanticized
constantly, talked about everywhere by everyone, but platonic breakups are
swept to the side, suffered in secret, as if they’re somehow less important.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“I finish underlining the date with my ruler so it's perfectly straight. This is like my version of drugs.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“I really can't stand it when people are angry at me. Like, I know it might be simple for others, but I can't focus on anything else. I can't just forget about it and go on with my own life. It's like there's something hard wedged inside my own chest. I'll always feel guilty. I'll always want to make amends.”
― Ann Liang, I Hope This Doesn't Find You

“Is it really too much to ask? For people like me to want a bit of that light for ourselves?”
― Ann Liang, If You Could See the Sun