For all the people who have infected me with amor deliria nervosa in the past - you know who you are. For the people who will infect me in the future - I can't wait to see who you'll be. And in both cases: Thank you.
Lauren OliverThe sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped.
Lauren OliverI keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.
Lauren OliverI don't understand how everything changes, how the layers of your life get buried. Impossible. At some point, at some time, we must all explode.
Lauren OliverWhen Iโm running, thereโs always this split second when the pain is ripping through me and I can hardly breathe and all I see is color and blurโand in that split second, right as the pain crests, and becomes too much, and thereโs a whiteness going through me, I see something to my left, a flicker of color [โฆ]โand I know then, too, that if I only turn my head heโll be there, laughing, watching me, and holding out his arms. I donโt ever turn my head to look, of course. But one day I will. One day I will, and heโll be back, and everything will be okay. And until then: I run.
Lauren OliverI know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It's hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside you like a stone.
Lauren Oliver