Joy > Joy's Quotes

“Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I startle, breathing faster, grateful he can only sense the general direction of my feelings and not more than that. For a moment I actually want to say no. No, I’m not scared. I’m petrified. Because being this close to you is doing things to me. Strange things and irrational things and things that flutter against my chest and braid my bones together. I want a pocketful of punctuation marks to end the thoughts he’s forced into my head. But I don’t say any of those things. Instead, I ask a question I already know the answer to. “Why would I be scared?” “You’re shaking,” he says. “Oh.” The two letters and their small, startled sound run right out of my mouth to seek refuge in a place far from here. I keep wishing I had the strength to look away from him in moments like this. I keep wishing my cheeks wouldn’t so easily enflame. I keep wasting my wishes on stupid things, I think.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me