Quotes from Aaron Starmer

To the ones who feel like it could all come apart at any moment . . . and to the ones who comfort us and keep us together

If you lose track of time, you lose track of your mind. You don't go crazy necessarily, but your thoughts wander. They go on permanent vacations.

If you don't share your stories with other people. do they even count? If you don't share your stories, do they even need an ending? I know, it's that stupid if a tree falls in the forest sort of question, but I mean it.

Her bone-white face lit up like she was at a surprise party. "Hear that, Dwyer? He called me ma'am! Stay forever if you want, big guy. Teach my son a thing or two about manners." "He's good people," Kyle said. "Always has been." It was the last thing I wanted to hear at that moment. "I'm not always good," I shot back. "Ooooo, polite and a bad boy," Gina cooed. "Watch out, ladies.

Sometimes I don't feel like writing at all...It seems so selfish, writing.

The truth can be crazy sometimes.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all that stuff. Death takes everyone. Most of us too early, a few of us not early enough.

Fiona only spoke when called upon and always sighed her way through answers as if school were the ultimate inconvenience. She was unknowable in the way that all girls are unknowable, but also in her own way.

Mrs. Delson had called it "promising", which I took to mean it was promising. But you eventually realise something if you're inundated with empty compliments like that- You've got loads of potential, Alistair! You've got the makings of someone great, Alistair! It's all part of a comforting but dishonest language that's used to encourage, but not to praise.

Making efforts was not exactly my forte. I always had great ideas, of course. I would have been perfect for a think tank. Think tanks are a thing, right? Organizations where people sit around and come up with solutions to the world's problems? I would have been a shoo-in for one of those. However, if do-tanks are also a thing—as in, organizations that actually do shit—then you would have had to count me out. On account of, well, laziness.

This is where the inspiration for books comes from. Images and ideas and sounds from these worlds seep through the water and into our dimension. And those things inspire people like you. Storytellers.

Here's the thing about believing: sometimes it's a question of will. You work at it. You keep telling yourself to believe in something, and eventually your brain surrenders and lets the belief in. Sometimes it's like a switch being flipped, an overnight thing, a wake up and look at the ceiling and say THIS IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS NOW AND I GUESS I'M OKAY WITH IT sort of thing.

Then your job is to be a sister...All you have to do is this: Listen. Have patience. And love.

HOPE. It counts for so, so much.

Hope alone can't do everything, though. Hope needs help.

And yet all things, even strange and wondrous ones, lose their luster with time. They always do.

Most stories, especially difficult ones, are a mix of truth and lies.

Now, as we all know, a group of dolphins is called a pod, a group of crows is called a murder, and so on. Henceforth, I'd like all groups of people who call themselves reporters but are actually only bloggers writing listicles to be known as a scumbag.

Sometimes confusion feels like pain. Sometimes it feels like falling.

We are a sum of our choices. We are not our single choices.

When you believe something that you don't have solid proof of, that's faith, right? But faith is hard to do alone. You need others to believe the same things you do, or else you're gonna go a little nutty, aren't you.