Lauren DeStefano Quotes

Most dystopian, classic and contemporary, paints a future world that puts a twist on present society - a future world that could plausibly happen.

Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.

Fall has always been my favorite season.

The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.

There's a hazy smile on her lips that won't go away, and her hair is a mess.

It's like a brushfire filled with casualties.

‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.

Childhood is a long, long road, from which that dark whispering forest of death seems an impossible destination.

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.

I can hear my brother's voice in my head.

Your problem is that you're too emotional. But how can I not be emotional, Rowan? How can I not care?

Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don't question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.

The madness of youth made me unafraid.

They never exhale, the trees; on a very windy day, they rustle and inhale, and then the leaves and the branches all tremble as though something means to strangle the life from them. The sky watches on. The world is filled with anticipation, as if to wonder if this day will be a great day, or a horrible day, or the last day.

I like the idea of something greater than us.

We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions. We are no closer to perfection than we were one hundred years ago, or five hundred.

There's a sort of dead passion in him. A spark that, had he more years to live, would be a wildfire.

I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.

It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.

Things will get worse before they get better.

I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand.

In the distance I see a lighthouse. The light washes over us and continues on its rotation. This time, I don't know where the light will guide us.

He gathers me up and I'm weightless before he sets me on the railing.

He's the only thing keeping me from falling back, out of the reach of daylight. I'm not afraid of falling. I don't fear the sky beyond the train tracks like I did before. I can go anywhere just so long as it's with him.

I never wanted to live forever," she says. "I just wanted enough time.

There's a world out there that nobody has bothered to promise her.

Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky.

I think, in this strange world of beautiful things, there may be some humanity after all.

A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.

I should not have loved my daughter as I did.

Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.

A feeling can't kill you.

We can change so many times in our lives.

We're born into a family, and it's the only life we can imagine, but it changes. Buildings collapse. Fires burn. And the next second we're someplace else entirely, going through different motions and trying to keep up with this new person we've become.

She’s a commodity in a sea of broken girls.

We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be.

We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.

Don't forget how you got here. Don't Forget.

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

It was a terrible decision, and I confess I'd make it again.

You've been captive for so long that you don't even realize you want freedom anymore.

Perhaps... you love too fiercely.

Every star has been set in the sky. We mistakenly think they were put there for us.

You’re insane, you know that?” he says. “It’s the only thing keeping me afloat,” I say.

You can try to please everyone and risk accomplishing nothing, or go for your dreams and risk pissing a few people off.

On tiptoes the redhead wouldn't even reach my shoulders;

she is clearly too young to be a bride. And the willowy girl is too forlorn. And I am too unwilling. Yet here we are.

Life is much different from the days when there were lilies in my mother’s garden, and all my secrets fit into a paper cup.

I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing.

I wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didn't trust it with my secrets.

Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.

When we were first married, I thought he must have been the most heartless, hateful man I'd ever known, but he was just as much a prisonor as I was. Where Vaughn imprisoned me with walls, he imprisoned his son with ignorance.

And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.

Sometimes we don't know how afraid we are until we've reached a strange door and we don't know what will be on the other side.

A party in the orange grove. The pain on Linden's face is immediate. I am unwavering. He has cost me more pain than I will ever be able to repay.

Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.

I'm suddenly finding it hard to know the difference between nightmares and consciousness.