Emma Lewis > Emma's Quotes

“The Colonel led all the cheers.
Cornbread!" he screamed.
CHICKEN!" the crowd responded.
Rice!"
PEAS!"
And then, all together: "WE GOT HIGHER SATs."
Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" the Colonel cried.
YOU'LL BE WORKIN' FOR US SOMEDAY!”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

"Augustus," I said.

"I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I just did some calculations and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“I don't like reindeer. They seem like regular deer, only more dangerous.”
― John Green

“Maybe its like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And then things happen - these people leave us, or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack in places. And I mean, yeah once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled. But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And its only that time that we see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face to face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade, but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“May I see you again?" he asked. There was an endearing nervousness in his voice.

I smiled. "Sure."

"Tomorrow?" he asked.

"Patience, grasshopper," I counseled. "You don't want to seem overeager.

"Right, that's why I said tomorrow," he said. "I want to see you again tonight. But I'm willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow." I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious," he said.

"You don't even know me," I said. I grabbed the book from the center console. "How about I call you when I finish this?"

"But you don't even have my phone number," he said.

"I strongly suspect you wrote it in this book."

He broke out into that goofy smile. "And you say we don't know each other.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“She's under duress," Peaseblossom said.
"I don't care if she's under duress, over it, or alongside it," Moth said. "Nothing in this world supersedes cake.”
― Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars

“Words are like the delicate stitches in the dress you wear, holding the fabric of the garmet together. Without them, the dress and the world are nothing but barren cloth”
― Lisa Mantchev, Perchance to Dream

“He dodged remarkably fast for a melancholy introvert.”
― Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars

“I always walked the ragged edge.”
― Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars

“Our unguarded reactions are the most honest ones.”
― Lisa Mantchev, So Silver Bright

“You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry?

You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me. ”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Star people are rare.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Heart and head are contrary historians.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“Will you please tell me you love me? I’m dying here.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“I'm saying I'm in love with you! I've been in love with you this whole bleeding year!”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“A moment of reserve. "That was it? The whole story?"
"Yes. God, you're right. That was pants."
I sidestep another aggressive couscous vendor. "Pants?"
"Rubbish. Crap. Shite."
Pants. Oh heavens, that's cute.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“Most people in Atlanta don't have an accent. It's pretty urban. A lot of people speak gangsta, though," I add jokingly.
"Fo' shiz," he replies in his polite English accent.
I spurt orangey-red soup across the table. St. Clair gives a surprised ha-HA kind of laugh, and I'm laughing too, the painful kind like abdominal crunches. He hands me a napkin to wipe my chin. "Fo'. Shiz." He repeats it solemnly.
Cough cough. "Please don't ever stop saying that. It's too-" I gasp. "Much."
"You oughtn't to have said that. Now I shall have to save it for special occasions."
"My birthday is in February." Cough choke wheeze. "Please don't forget.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“Just because something isn't practical doesn't mean it's not worth creating. Sometimes beauty and real-life magic are enough.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Lola and the Boy Next Door

“Perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring."
I smile. "You don't think I'm perfect?"
"No. You're delightfully screwy, and I wouldn't have you any other way.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Lola and the Boy Next Door