I carry a strong anti-drug message, and it's important young people especially hear a "real" story about addiction and how it affects not only the addict but also the people who love him/her, rather than "just say no."
Ellen HopkinsI don’t think God has a gender. I don’t think God hates gays or Democrats, and I don’t think you have to be Born Again to find your way to Heaven. I believe God expects us to care for one another, even those who are different. God wants us to be good stewards of this planet, and that means not wasting or violating its resources. Most of all, it means not blowing it up. Especially not in God’s name.
Ellen HopkinsWith you, I am Eve. And you are my beautiful Adam. Let's run away, find our garden, live there together, happy. Naked.
Ellen HopkinsFreedom is a double-edged ideal, because true freedom comes without the protection of laws that also enslave us by defining us--female, male; Christian, Islamic; good, evil. All at the whim of a frail minority.
Ellen Hopkinscrawling up into daddy's lap when dad was still DADDY nodding my head against his chest soaking in the comfort of his heart LISTENING to the thump...thump somewhere beneath muscle and breastbone I remember his arms their sublime ENCIRCLING and the shawdow of his voice "I love you, little girl. Put away your bad dreams. Daddy's here" I put them away, Until Daddy became my nightmare that one that came HOME from work everyday and instead of picking me up, chased me far far away
Ellen HopkinsShe's incredible, not that she's perfect. But you once said imperfections create character.
Ellen HopkinsAll I can do is lie here, brain turning somersaults. It's nights like these when memories stir, whipping themselves into stiff peaks of pain.
Ellen HopkinsHow can I explain purposely setting foot on a path so blatantly treacherous? Was the fun in the fall?
Ellen HopkinsDisappointment Can do a couple things. It can drop you into a giant sucking sinkhole of depression, a place you have to fight to climb out of. Or it can trigger an epic mania to overcome the odds and transform failure into success. Say you swing as high as the chains will take you because you seek the thrill of flight, and on the up- kick, you lose your seat. Injury is likely. But if you worry about falling down, and never chance "up," the sky will remain forever out of reach.
Ellen HopkinsFunny how when your life is mostly bullshit, you turn off feeling. Sometimes it's hard to turn it back on again.
Ellen HopkinsDespite whoever created it, it's my world, & the only one I've got. Might as well make the best of it, right? Might as well have a little fun while I'm here. Or a lot of fun. Might be dead tomorrow.
Ellen HopkinsI felt angry, frustrated. I felt I didn't belong, not in my church, not in my home, not in my skin. Amidst the chaos, i felt alone, in need of a friend instead of a sister, someone detached from my world. The "woman's role" theory disgusted me. I would soon be a woman, and I knew I could never perform as expected. I was tired of my mom's submission to her religion, to her husband's sick quest for an heir, to his abuse. I was sick of my dad, of reaching for him as he fell farther away from us and into the arms of Johnnie WB.
Ellen HopkinsSpilling a Secret What its size, will have varying consequences. It’s not possible to predict what will happen if you open the gunnysack, let the cat escape. A liberated feline might purr on your lap, or it might scratch your eyes out. You can’t tell until you loosen the knot. Do you chance losing a friendship, if that friend’s well-being will only be preserved by betraying sworn-to silence trust? Once the seam is ripped, can it be mended again? And if that proves impossible, will you be okay when it all falls to pieces?
Ellen HopkinsI know he wants to get serious. He's definitely not a player, not a poser, not a loser, not a user.
Ellen HopkinsNo one teaches you how to walk away from someone who you know loves you. NO one teaches you how to say good-bye.
Ellen HopkinsIt [death] chokes you, gags you, but you have to pretend that you're doing just fine, not trembling with this fear because the end is close.
Ellen Hopkinsthe not-so-bookish librarian was half angel, half she-devil, so sayeth the rumor mill.
Ellen HopkinsI hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.
Ellen HopkinsWish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound. Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light. Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeapordy. Pray you could somehow stop uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.
Ellen HopkinsWould I ever find forever love? Do I really want to, when forever was a word without meaning?
Ellen HopkinsAnd how can it be he's so in love with me? To grow up without love, and still have so much inside?
Ellen HopkinsWhen did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person who lives inside your skin?
Ellen HopkinsLight That's how I feel- like the winter-fringed breeze might scoop me up into its wings, fly away with me trapped in its feathered embrace. I am a snowflake. A wisp of eiderdown, liberated from gravity. My body is light. Ephemeral. My head is light. I want to sway beneath the weight of air, dizzy with thought. Light filters through my closed eyelids. The sun, chasing shadows, tells me I'm not afloat in dreams.
Ellen HopkinsGirls get screwed. Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things. The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feel cheap for doing exactly what they beg for. The way they get to play you, all the while claiming they love you and making you believe it's true. The way it's okay to gift their heart one day, a backhand the next, to move on to the apricot when the peach blushes and bruises. These things make me believe God's a man after all.
Ellen HopkinsI'm in love. And I like how that feels. And I hate how that feels. Because love is an invention of fiction writers.
Ellen HopkinsLove Is a curious thing. Sometimes it barrels into you, leaves you breathless. Other times, it comes in- to your life, a tentative beam of morning sun sneaking through the blinds, and you think this light isn't possible. The shutters are drawn. Night should linger on. I don't feel like waking. Yet the room comes slowly lit. Sleep slithers away, and at last you can no longer deny the dawning.
Ellen HopkinsAt Last It's a perfect winter day. No wind. No Arctic freeze. Cloudless azure sky. A day to fly. Snow drapes the mountain like ermine, fabulous feather- light powder coaxing me to flee the confines of my room, brave the mostly plowed road up to the closest ski resort. To run from the cloying silence connected Mom and Dad, into encompassing stillness far away from city dirt and noise Far above suburban gridlock. Far beyond the grasp of home.
Ellen HopkinsSorry. But I don't need some money-grubbing preacher defining my relationship with God.
Ellen HopkinsBelieve it or not, I sold my first novel, Crank, with only seventy-five pages complete. It was in verse then, and it was hard-hitting then.
Ellen HopkinsHappiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books.
Ellen Hopkins