Quotes from Jennifer Niven

I guess you can be yourself, whatever that means—the best and the worst of you. And they love you anyway. You can fight, but even when you're mad at them, you know they're not going to stop being your friend.

Your hope lies in accepting your life as it now lies before you, forever changed. If you can do that, the place you seek will follow.

It's not what you take, it's what you leave.

I will always be here, in the offering and people I left behind.

We can't always see what other don't want us to. Especially when they go to great lengths to hide it.

Finch swims toward shore and comes walking toward me. I try not to stare at him, dripping wet and naked, so I watch the crane, the sky, anything but him.

I think I've got a map in my car that wants to be used, and I think there are places we can go that need to be seen. Maybe no one else will ever visit them and appreciate them or take the time to think they're important, but maybe even the smallest places mean something. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us.

Is this part of the geography project? Are you wandering the riverbed or just each other?

I'd rather be judged on what I can do instead of who I'm not.

The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count. Everyone's so busy waiting in the Waiting Place. If we stopped to remember that there's such a thing as a Purina Tower, we'd all be happier.

Let's talk about the SAT. You got a 2280.

It's hard to describe, but I imagine the way I am at this moment is a lot like getting sucked into a vortex. Everything dark and churning, but slow churning instead of fast, and this great weight pulling you down, like it's attached to your feet even if you can't see it. I think, This is what it must feel like to be trapped in quicksand.

Come on. Let me have it. Don't disappear in there.' I mean inside herself, where I'll never get to her.

That's another lie. That's not even his real handwriting. There is nothing about this boy that is neat and careful.

There's more to you than meets the eye

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. — Ernest Hemingway

I can't love anyone because it's not fair to anyone who loves me back.

Every way all that anyone could be.… If anybody.

I remember being so full of pain and anger that I wished nothing but tongue-burning on everyone who hurt me, especially Moses Hunt. But here's the thing- Merricat poisoned her entire family. The only crime I committed was being fat.

Maybe it isn't the room that's different. Maybe it's me.

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 shitty, 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.

There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. None of us knows how long we have, maybe another month, maybe another fifty years -I like living as if I only have two days

What are you most afraid of?" "Dying. Losing my parents. Staying here for the rest of my life. Never figuring out what I'm supposed to do. Being ordinary. Losing everyone I love.

the smile of a man who has a new wife and a new son and a new house and two new cars and who only has to put up with his old, original kids for another hour or two.