Quotes from Lauren DeStefano

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.

When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.

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.

Good night, sweetheart," he says. "Good bye, sweetheart," I say. And it's so casual, so innocent that he doesn't suspect a thing.

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

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

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.

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

Every generation has a macabre notion that wars, government prohibition, natural disasters or mankind itself could be the downfall of society and the world as a whole.

'Dystopian,' by definition, promises a darker story.

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

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.

There's a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.

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.

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.

In another time, in another place, I wonder who they might have been.

Once upon a time there were two parents, two children, and a brick house with lilies in the yard. The parents died, the lilies wilted. One child disappeared. Then the other." Pg 225

Give me time" "For you, always.

I don't know if it was love or an illusion. I don't know if there's ever a way to be certain.

Maybe it is desperation. Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love.

When I was growing up, there actually wasn't a lot of YA literature as it exists today. Most of the YA that I read was from the '60s and '70s, older than me.

I realized how wonderful YA is and how I really wanted to write something that created that level of intrigue.

Maybe hope isn't the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is.