Quotes from Jennifer Niven

It's only when you panic that you pull yourself under and sink

The girl who dropped everything is Violet Markey, the same Violet Markey from the bell tower. She turns beet red and I can tell she wants to die. Not in a jumping-from-a-great-height kind of way, but more along the lines of Please, earth, swallow me whole.

It's easier to do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for

maybe even the smallest places mean something. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us.

Water is peaceful. I am at rest. In the water, I am safe and pulled in where I can't get out. Everything slows down— the noise and the racing of my thoughts.

This is my secret--that any moment I might fly away. Everyone on earth but me--and now Violet--moves in slow motion, like they're filled with mud. We are faster than all of them.

You have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier to just do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for.

I do it so it feels real.

Before I die I want to have kids. Live in London...Write a book...Feel good about myself...Live...Play guitar like Jimmy Page. Come up with a song that will change the world. Find the Great Manifesto. Count for something. Be the person I'm meant to be and have that be enough...Matter...Stop being afraid. Stop thinking too much. Fill the holes left behind. Drive...Write. Breathe...Before I die I want to know a perfect day.

The thing is, there are good days and bad days. I feel almost guilty saying they aren't all bad. Something catches me off guard—a TV show, a funny one-liner from my dad, a comment in class—and I laugh like nothing ever happened.

For now, why not write things down where no one will see it?

Nothing will ever be okay again, not in the same way, but I'm getting used to it.

The cadence of suffering has begun."—CesarePavese

He taught me to wander. He taught me that you don't have to climb a mountain to stand on top of the world.

It takes many, many coats to cover the red. No matter what I do, it seeps right through, like the walls are bleeding.

it starts thinking of every way in which Violet Markey might break my heart.

She is collecting all the unhappy, mad, bad, unpleasant words and keeping them for herself. "Why are we doing this, Dec?" Because they shouldn't be in there mixed with the good. They like to trick you.

Everyone goes on with their lives and maybe I can't keep up. Maybe I don't want to.

Theodore Finch, in search of the Great Manifesto.

I like to think that the colors and sounds and words have nothing to do with him, that they're all me and my own brilliant, complicated, buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving, godlike brain.

When this wave comes over me and I feel the hollow in my heart that's been there ever since my mum died. Loss does that to you, hits you out of the blue. You can be in the car or in class or at the movies, laughing and having a good time, and suddenly it's as if someone has reached directly into the wound and squeezed with all their might.

What are you most afraid of?" I say before we jump. I can already feel my skin starting to burn from the sun. "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 only crime I committed was being fat.

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