Even If We Break Quotes

“None of my doctors told me about how pain wears you down until you sometimes don't know where physical pain stops and mental pain begins. They didn't tell me about the anger and the fear and the helplessness. Finn told me and then, when I finally let him, held me while I let it all sink in.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“And at some point, you discover if you’re going to be afraid anyway, you may as well do the things that scare you.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“I try to focus, but there's a disconnect between my body and my mind, like nothing about it fits anymore. I don't feel like I belong in this body, I don't know how to interact with this world. It feels like I'm observing through a veil, and I don't know how to move. Panic is a type of pain too.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Before the accident—BTA—I didn't know anger and pain could feel the same. I didn't think physical pain and emotional pain could simply be extensions of each other. Now, I could hardly separate the two. And I wanted to crash my fist into a kitchen cabinet or my knee into a chair. Find a more harmful way to stim. Either make the pain worse or make it go away.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Here's the thing. I never quite know if I'm responding the "right" way to anything happening around me. Should I be more scared? Should I be angrier? Should fear immobilize me? What happens around me and how my brain responds to it are two entirely different things, and I can't tell all the time how they're connecting.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“The world is a messed up and scary place. It's lonely to go through it on your own. So, you have to find your family. You have to find people who will stand by you and make you laugh until you cry, and who will hold you while you cry until you laugh again.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Not being able to do everything on your own doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re as human as we all are, and we’re stronger together. We survived because we were together. Asking for help isn’t failure, it’s strength. It means you trust yourself enough to be flawed and to learn. Because here’s the secret: You don’t have to be infallible. You don’t have to know it all. No one is and no one does.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“It’s not giving up. It’s standing together, not alone. It’s facing whatever comes next. Because you believe in a cause, perhaps, but most of all, you believe in one another.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Some sounds can break through everything:
Silence.
Tension.
Night.
Imagination.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Living with an obnoxious, stubborn body means I learned how to fall. I learned how to break my fall. I learned how to fall and protect myself. I learned how to fall and keep breathing. I learned how to fall in such a way that I didn't break further. But getting back up again is never easy.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Here, everything is possible. And that is the biggest lie of all. I don't just want to make the game good for them; I want to stay here and never go back.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“I half shrug and keep my voice level. "This is how we gain experience, both in this game and in life. We win some battles. We lose others. We learn and we keep moving."
"I hate that life has gotten so complicated."
I smile. "I'm not sure it was ever uncomplicated."
Maddy shrugs. "I don't know. It was, at least, less complicated. It feels like everything is falling to pieces. And I don't know who I am without this game. I don't know where I can find other safe places that let me be myself.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“It's hard, isn't it? Trusting others with the whole of you?"
She smiles bitterly and shakes her head. "It's so much easier to lie. You know that. You lie too.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Finn never told me how reassuring physical pain can be. It sends a thrill through me. A restless trembling that leaves me breathless—a hunger.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“In a way, it didn't. They didn't start the fight. I did. That's the part only my therapist knows. I didn't mind that they spat at me and shoved into me as I walked across the football field on my way home. I'd learned to ignore that. I snapped and started the fight because they said something awful about Ever.
Irrational gallantry, maybe? I never asked for this type of masculinity, but there it was.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“The mountain is hungry. The night has teeth. And both demand to be paid their price in blood.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“I can deal with pain. I always have and always will. But that's familiar pain. It's the pain I can—to some degree—adapt to and understand. This is too much. Too overwhelming. What's almost as bad is that I'm bone tired. Tired enough that part of me wants to curl up and stay here, screw the consequences.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“I've always thought this the test of a good game. Whether it withstands the stories told about it.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“I'm not saying anyone did this. But people are capable of all kinds of things. And I can keep trusting people and getting hurt, or I can try to be more sensible about it." I scowl and look away from them, but despite my determination, the words taste like bile in my mouth. It's so much easier not to get attached to people, but I don't think I can live like that.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Trouble is, that's exactly what scares me. I don't feel safe with many people. I have literally never asked someone out on a date before. I don't have a clue how to go about it. I never did crushes before. I didn't feel comfortable enough in my own skin. I didn't know how much of a hang-up gender would be for other people—or disability, for that matter. If you're constantly told people like you don't have meaningful relationships, it's hard to believe you're allowed to try.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Trouble is, that's exactly what scares me. I don't feel safe with many people. I have literally never asked someone out on a date before. I don't have a clue how to go about it. I never did crushes before. I didn't feel comfortable enough in my own skin. I didn't know how much of a hang-up gender would be for other people—or disability, for that matter. If you're constantly told people like you don't have meaningful relationships, you eventually believe it.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Lente understood what Feather did. She was always kinder than me—but weaker too. I'd miss her. I'd miss her uncomplicated worldview. Now, I glance away from my friends.
"I need a moment to myself. I just...need..." I need to get away from here, from everything I've lost.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“It's always the same thing. Other things and other people are always more important than me. And if people see me, it's never for who I am, but only for what I can do for them.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“In a way, it didn't. They didn't start the fight. I did. That's the part only my therapist knows.
I didn't mind that they spat at me and shoved into me as I walked across the football field on my way home. I'd learned to ignore that. I snapped and started the fight because they said something awful about Ever.
Irrational gallantry, maybe? I never asked for this type of masculinity, but there it was.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“My walls don't hold up. Ever deconstructs me. And I'm helplessly, overwhelmingly, absolutely terrifyingly in love. Again and again and again.
I do the only thing I can. I run headlong into danger.
I pull a battered notebook out of my pocket, grab a pencil from the coffee table, and purposefully make my way over to Liva. Because there's only one way to play this and that's to play hard.
"Do you see any sort of pattern?"
She tenses. Freezes. It's all I need. I let my annoyance push away my vulnerability. Being angry is so much easier than being hurt again.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“After she hung up, the cabin was quiet. The birdsong felt more distant, and the creaking of the doors in the wind sounded like nails on chalkboard. And I knew home was this, too: laughter, company. Home was the opposite of loneliness.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Home was Gonfalon, the world I built for my friends, where everyone can figure out who they want to be and what they want to do in an ever-changing society, but where no one has to go hungry and no one has to be alone.
And while the real world waited for no one, it occasionally paused. It granted us empty afternoons, without school, or my job at Paper Hearts, or the responsibility of watching my sister.
Without worries, and with nothing but birdsong—or storm winds—outside.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Home was Gonfalon, the world I built for my friends, where everyone can figure out who they want to be and what they want to do in an ever-changing society, but where no one has to go hungry and no one has to be alone.
And while the real world waited for no one, it occasionally paused. It granted us empty afternoons, without school, or my job at Paper Hearts, or the responsibility of watching my sister. Without worries, and with nothing but birdsong—or storm winds—outside.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“My friends are hurting. It's my job to protect them. It's my job to keep them safe."
"No, your job is to love hard enough to counterbalance the hatred. That's enough.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break

“Hatred is insidious. It doesn't attack once and then withdraw. Hatred is a parasite. It burrows. It gnaws at you. It tries to undermine the structures you have and leave voids where your safeguards were." He says it like it's no big deal. Like that's just the way things are.
"I don't want it to be like that."
"Of course not. No one does."
"So what do I do about it?"
"You fill those voids with love.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, Even If We Break