Alexandra > Alexandra's Quotes

“We had the stars, you and I. And this is given once only.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it. Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there's sorrow. I don't envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“If he knew, if he only knew that I was giving him every chance to put two and two together and come up with a number bigger than infinity.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“You'll kill me if you stop.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“I'm like you,' he said. 'I remember everything.'

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“As I sat there working on transcriptions at my round table in the morning, what I would have settled for was not his friendship, not anything. Just to look up and find him there, suntan lotion, straw hat, red bathing suit, lemonade. To look up and find you there, Oliver. For the day will come soon enough when I’ll look up and you’ll no longer be there.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“If you're my friend I should be able to talk to you but I can't, and if I can't talk to you, well, what is the point of you? Of us?”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“Whatever happens tomorrow, we had today; and I'll always remember it”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.”
― David Nicholls, One Day

“Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“Dr. Armonson stitched up her wrist wounds. Within five minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger. Chucking her under the chin, he said, "What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets."

And it was then Cecilia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live: "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“They're just memories now. Time to write them off.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“Lux spent the ride dialing the radio for her favorite song. "It makes me crazy," she said. "You know they're playing it somewhere, but you have to find it.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“Everything is true,' he said. 'Everything anybody has ever thought.'

'Will you be all right?'

'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“...and there I was sending all the wrong signals to the right people in the wrong ways. Again, again, again.”
― Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post

“I was doing my little stand up shtick, the one I did for pretty girls, so they'd like me quickly and wouldn't try too hard to actually get to know me beyond my role as wisecracking Cameron, the orphan. Maybe it was a little like flirting, but also a kind of protection: Don't get too close; I'm just jokes with substance.”
― Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post

“People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I don't know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story