Quotes from Jennifer Niven

In 1912, a man named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing a parachute suit he designed himself. He jumped to test his invention--he expected to fly--but instead he fell straight down, hitting the ground like a meteor and leaving a 5.9-inch-deep crater from the impact. Did he mean to kill himself? Doubtful. I think he was just cocky, and also stupid.

You will work... in teams of... two. This will count... for thirty-five percent... of your final grade...' I raise my hand again. 'Can we choose our partners?' 'Yes.' 'I choose Violet Markey.' 'You may work that out... with her after class.' I shift in my seat so I can see her, elbow on the back of my chair. 'Violet Markey, I'd like to be your partner on this project.

We can't always see what others don't want us to. Especially when they go to great lengths to hide it" -Mr. Embry

But he's kind of... extreme. Like he came to school one day painted head-to-toe red, and it wasn't even Spirit Week. He told some people that he was protesting racism and others he was protesting the consumption of meat. Junior year he wore a cape every day for an entire month, cracked a chalkboard in half with a desk, and stole all the dissecting frogs from the science wing and gave them a funeral before burying them in the baseball field.

The thing suicides don't focus on is their wake. Not just your parents and siblings, but your friends, your girlfriends, your classmates, your teachers.' I like the way he seems to think I have many, many people depending on me, including not just one but multiple girlfriends.

The thing I don't say is: I want to stay alive. the reason I don't say it is because, given that fat folder in front of him, he'd never believe it. And here's something else he'd never believe--I'm fighting to be here in this [crappy], messed-up world. Standing on the ledge of the bell tower isn't about dying. It's about having control. It's about never going to sleep again.

According to Charlie, getting laid fixes everything. If only world leaders would get laid well and regularly, the world's problems might disappear.

I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet.

I am staring at the place where the floor used to be. All I can think is how one minute the floor was there and now it's not. How you could go through an entire day, every day, not thinking about the floor or the ground because you just assume it will always be there. Until it isn't.

Her eyes are warm, but her mouth is sad.

The wall is a place to keep track of thoughts, as fast as they come, and remember them when they go away. Anything interesting or weird or even halfway inspired goes up there.

I lost my friend to suicide a year before I lost my father to cancer. They were both ill at the same time, and they died within fourteen months of each other, but the reaction to their illnesses and deaths could not have been more different. People rarely bring flowers to a suicide.

Because after suffering a loss, you become a ghost in your own body. You observe yourself doing things and saying things that you might not normally do or say. You need something to ground you and prove to you that you're still here. As a way of feeling something. Anything.

Get out there and see your state. Go to museums and parks and historic sites. Get yourselves some culture so that when you do leave you can take it.

Maybe because the human body was built to float.

Velva Jean, sometimes dreams change, either because they have to or because life has something else in mind for you.

Me: It's late. Finch: That depends on who you ask. See, I don't necessarily think it's late. I think early. Early in our lives. Early in the night. Early in the new year. If you're counting, you'll notice the earlys outnumber the lates.

jealousy is a mean, unpleasant feeling that only eats you from the inside

The future is uncertain, but that can be a good thing" -Finch

Before I Die I Want To Know A Perfect Day.

And for a long time I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, and I actually disappear before my eyes. I am disappearing. Maybe I'm already gone.

Trapped behind the wall I've built around myself, unable to move or breathe or do anything but keep building it up around me, brick by brick, fast as I can.

You have you let the tears come," she always says. "Because if you don't, they'll come out eventually – maybe not as tears, but as anger or something else.

It's so lovely to be lovely to the one I love.