Lauren Zygowicz > Lauren's Quotes

“I’ll survive this. I’ll live. But there’s a hole in me, never to be filled. Maybe that’s why people die of old age. Maybe we could live forever if we didn’t love so completely. But we do. And by the time old age comes, we’re filled with holes, so many that it’s too hard to breathe. So many that our insides aren’t even ours anymore. We’re just one big empty space, waiting to be filled by the darkness. Waiting to be free.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“Great passions grow into monsters in the dark of the mind; but if you share them with loving friends they remain human, they can be endured.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“…I’m Salhudin. Sal.”
“’Sal’? No way … You make people call you by your name. If they can say Santiago, Alexander, Demetrius, and Ecclesiastes, they can say Salahudin.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“Losses never come alone. Like wool unraveling stitch by stitch, one loss brings another, until even the most tightly woven fabric disintegrates into a heap of frayed threads.”
― Jacqueline West, Long Lost

“In the end, Aziza was alone. Nothing moved except for her. The forest had an undead quality, like true death would have been more peaceful than whatever this was- the ash trees gone white and uncertain as ghosts, the silence tense as if the world was waiting with baited breath for an unfinished song to pick back up. Everything aware of her -aware in a way that felt real enough for her to touch, like a collar around her throat.”
― Rochelle Hassan, The Buried and the Bound

“It is nearly impossibly to be sad when eating a blueberry muffin. I'm pretty sure that's a scientific fact.”
― T. Kingfisher, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

“You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don't ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”
― T. Kingfisher, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

“When Americans start fighting over their schools, you can be fairly sure of one thing: it probably isn't really about school.”
― Jennifer C. Berkshire

“The American people themselves need to make clear --especially at the ballot box-- that public education is an issue they won't budge on.”
― Jennifer C. Berkshire

“Your majesty, please reconsider," Lord Dudley pleaded. "Your position will be much stronger with your husband as king. The people will see it as a sign of strength - "

She took a deep breath. "They need signs of my strength, not my reliance on the men around me.”
― Cynthia Hand, My Lady Jane

“That's third-state thinking. You'll never get anywhere if you what-if everything. You've got to live in the now. The first state.”
― Erin Entrada Kelly, The First State of Being

“This was real life. And the beginning of a special regular story where two people meet and help each other make something beautiful, at the risk of making a mess.

No this ain't no movie. This is a mirror. This me. This her. This us.

This is real.”
― Jason Reynolds, Twenty-Four Seconds from Now . . . A Love Story

“We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That’s the way it is. I suppose we just go on and do the best we can and try to do more good than bad using our time in Earth.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“There are few better things in life than exploring with a dog and finding new places together.”
― M.T. Anderson, Elf Dog and Owl Head

“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“Get inside! You're bleeding!"
"I will not bleed any less indoors, you utter madwoman.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“The Folk were of another world, with its own rules and customs—and to a child who always felt ill-suited to her own world, the lure was irresistible.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“I wish to know the unknowable. To see what no mortal has seen. To peel back the carpeting of the world and tumble into the stars.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”
― Percival Everett, James

“Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change - and change is what we're chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others' opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future. When you go home today, ask yourself what YOU will change. And then get started.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“You get one chance to form your own squad, and you choose your ex, your current lover, the quadrant’s resident smart-ass, two people who have tried to kill you in the past year—one over said current lover—and whatever Dain is? These are your choices for the most important mission any rider could possibly undertake?” “I’m glad someone said it,” Tairn chimes in.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Onyx Storm

“RHEA (incredulous): There is no "we". These are animals.

LAVIANA (smiling): We are women. We are both”
― Lauren J.A. Bear, Mother of Rome

“A person should not have to be brutalized to be considered strong.”
― Lauren J.A. Bear, Mother of Rome

“Humans are made of memory and story as much as blood and bone.”
― Lauren J.A. Bear, Mother of Rome

“This is important. I need you to remember this: I was loved. I was profoundly and fully loved. This is critical, because people like to tell a version of stories where we were born to be neglected or forgotten or hurt.”
― Cherie Dimaline, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls

“Love who you love. Speak your truth. Be good and roll with life. You can’t have or control everything or everyone.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Peace
is so luminous
and short-lived.
Sooner or later
we'll return
to reality.”
― Margarita Engle, Wild Dreamers

“Well, imagine if we only ever did what we were supposed to,”
― Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

“But the thing about pain is that, when it's with you all the time, it starts to lose meaning. The difference between a three and a six is inconsequential. Stabbing or throbbing, it doesn't matter. All that matters is you can't think clearly. Everything you know is through the fabric of pain. Music is muffled. Flowers look wilted. Clouds look gray.”
― Allison Sweet Grant, I Am the Cage

“I didn't understand it, but somehow, somewhere, everything got turned backward, and my mind became a slave to my body instead of the other way around.”
― Allison Sweet Grant, I Am the Cage