Rage Quotes

“Prove it. I'll measure your words against your actions, and from that I will determine your worth.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“If Melissa Miller were an artist, she would have painted the world in vicious streaks of red. Nothing like Picasso's rose period, all soft and cheerful and so optimistic that it made you want to puke. Missy's red phase would have been brutal and bright enough to cut your eyes. Missy's art would have been honest.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“WHETHER IT'S A CHILD'S TOY OR A NATION'S OIL, IT'S ALL THE SAME, the Red Rider said. YOU FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU WANT. AGGRESSION. IT'S THE SPICE OF LIFE. War was right: people had to fight for what they wanted. Or maybe balance, as Famine has said -- strength matched with temperance.

No, she thought. Not balance, Control. IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT CONTROL, War agreed merrily. [as in the meaning of why wars happen]”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“Fear is sweat, but terror is addictive.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“YOU DEMAND SALVATION EVEN AS YOU STEAL FROM THE COLLECTION PLATE.

YOU SEND FOOD TO THE REFUGEES, AND THEN YOU DON'T ALLOW THE DELIVERY TRUCKS THROUGH THE WARZONES. THE FOOD WILL SPOIL , THE SUPPLIES WILL BE SOLD BY THE VICTORS . THE CIVILIANS WILL STARVE AND SICKEN AND EVENTUALLY DIE.


IT IS THE WAY OF THINGS. THEY WILL ALL DIE, WHETHER FROM THE BRUTAL SAVAGERY THAT IS UNIQUE TO MAN OR FROM THE ABUNDANCE OF DISEASE OR FROM THE SCARCITY OF SUSTENANCE.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“THEY WILL ALL BETRAY YOU, War said.
And they would. Whether it was her teachers or her friends or her family, they would all betray her. Maybe it would be couched in helpful terms, and maybe their faces would be brimming with sympathy. But in the end, they would all let her down.
They would all cut her down.
They would all slap labels on her and spoon-feed her appropriate words, wipe her mouth with their expectations. They
would wind her up and make her dance, and when they were done they'd put her away. They would keep doing it and doing it, until she was nothing more than a shell, a skin, something to slip on and slip off and tuck in at the corners.
They would ... unless she stopped them.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“He let out another chuckle, one that slithered up her spine and wrapped around her throat.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“His voice, dark and velvety soft, intimate and yet cold: You have blood on your hands.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“Melissa Miller, sixteen and a self-injurer, looked upon the embodiment of her rage. "I accept you," Missy said, opening her arms wide. "I accept me.”
― Jackie Morse Kessler, Rage

“When I cut, I’m the one controlling the pain. I know where it’s coming from. I know that it’s me who’s doing it, me and no one else.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“It hurts,” she said. “If I do it right, and I go slow and shallow, it really hurts. Like getting stung by wasps, or pulling off a hangnail that’s the size of your thumb, and all of it is happening in slow motion.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“All that mattered was the blood. She had to bleed out the badness, bleed until she could breathe again.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“Missy shoved the thoughts and feelings down into their prison of the glass jar. Only once the lid was sealed tight did she release her breath.”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage

“I’m a Horseman of the Apocalypse,” she snarled. “That’s not something you put into the rainbows-and-sunshine column of life!”
― Jackie Kessler, Rage