Forever has no meaning when you're living in the moment. I wasn't ready for that moment to end.
Ellen HopkinsCommunication Was never big in my house. We sat together over dinner, but the only sound you'd hear was crunching and chewing and the little ones asking for more, please. We lived, all boxed up in invisible containers. We hardly knew the people we called sister or father. Jackie and I were the exceptions to that rule.
Ellen HopkinsI haven't cried since Mom died. I mean, after something like that, what's left to cry about, right? But I let myself cry now. Loss is loss. Doesn't take death to create it. (266)
Ellen HopkinsEventually, it becomes a matter of scale. When the good outweighs the bad, you stay. When the bad is the only thing you notice anymore, you think about your future, or what's left of it, consider options.
Ellen HopkinsAnd at some point I would like to talk my publisher into doing an anthology of my poetry alongside some teen readers poetry. It would be fun, and really wonderful to get their stuff out there.
Ellen HopkinsTorch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.
Ellen HopkinsForever made that kiss stand out in my mind, touch my heart, make me remember a kiss so tender.
Ellen Hopkinsempty and closed, hovering in some frozen netherworld neither sun nor rain could thaw.
Ellen HopkinsI wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?
Ellen HopkinsIn my books my characters experience things as they are. My books allow youth an honest look at important issues affecting them. As adults we want to believe things like sex abuse or drug use are not happening anymore, or happening less and less, but that's not the case and we need to acknowledge that. We can't make life prettier for youth, but we can arm them.
Ellen HopkinsIf I come back to you now, can we be what we were before life’s uncertain rhythms tore us so far apart? If I return today, will your arms gather me in, or will I be wrenched away, snatched by riptide I have no power to resist? If I find my way to you, one man standing in a crowd, will I even know who you are?
Ellen HopkinsI tattered their wings and tore off their legs, joint by joint, watched them crawl in circles, like little lost infants, untill they decide to die.
Ellen HopkinsOne Time, One Day between Davie and Roberta , I asked my mom why she persisted, kept on having baby after baby, She looked at me, at a spot between my eyes, blinking like I had suddenly fallen crazy. She paused before answering as if to confide would legitimize my fears. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the chair. I touched her hand and I thought she might cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role. I decided if it was my role, I'd rather disappear.
Ellen HopkinsBad choices or good, if you never take chances, someone else will build your life for you.
Ellen HopkinsBut hey, I'm not exactly sold on the idea that love is, in fact, real. Will it find me one day, overtake me, infiltrate my life like sunlight snakes through the cold of morning? Can love thaw me? will it ever?
Ellen HopkinsCrank, You See isn't any ordinary monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving its tentacles not just around you, but through you, squeezing not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling until you try to get away. Try, and you hunger for it grasping clutch, the way its tendrils prop you up, your need intensifying exponentially every minute you refuse to admit its being (p.469)
Ellen HopkinsI mean, who wants to trudge through life, doing everything just right? Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.
Ellen HopkinsSo you try to think of someone else you're mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.
Ellen HopkinsIn fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.
Ellen HopkinsNow that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.
Ellen HopkinsYour hurt swallows ine, like space swallows time, and the two intertwine. We tangle together.
Ellen HopkinsHe has built a pedestal for her so tall that she is afraid to be lifted atop it, because to fall would mean certain death. But oh, she would rise far, far beyond fear and be held by arms so strong, and love so pure, that falling would not be an option.
Ellen HopkinsFunny thing, your brain, how it always functions on one level or another. How, even stuck in some sort of subconcious limbo, it works your lungs, your muscle twitches, your heart, in fact, in symphony with your heart, allowing it to feel love. Pain. Jealousy. Guilt. I wonder if it’s the same for people, lost in comas. Is there really such a thing
Ellen HopkinsLife is all about change. If it were static, think about how boring it would be. You can't be afraid of it, and you can't worry that you'll mess things up. You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them.
Ellen HopkinsBut death doesn't scare me. To know exactly when I might expect it, up close and in my face, would actually be a comfort. Because to tell the truth, most of the time dying seems pretty much like my only means of escape.
Ellen HopkinsShe is angle. I am curve. Together, we are geometric sculpture, and we make perfect sense.
Ellen HopkinsAct on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.
Ellen HopkinsWhy are people so afraid of giving their kids necessary information that might prevent an unwanted pregnancy or disease? But they're not worried about the violent nature of video games or movies or books.
Ellen HopkinsLosing It Some days I think I'm losing my mind. What seems so clear most of the time becomes a big question mark. Am I really the way I percieve myself, or is the person others see the truth of me? I wait for answers, but inside I know I have to go out and find them. And answers like knowledge, are not always where we first look for them.
Ellen HopkinsOur meeting, touching, accidentally connecting immediately, interwoven hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart.
Ellen HopkinsI can't change what has happened in the past, Kaeleigh. I can only promise to make the future better.
Ellen HopkinsWhen you love someone, you don't want to hurt them, even if they deserve to be hurt. When you love someone, you want to hurt them, even when they don't deserve to be hurt.
Ellen HopkinsThe problem with falling in love is falling back out of it again, usually because you've fallen in love with a lie. That happens as often as not.
Ellen HopkinsOne foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.
Ellen Hopkins