Tahereh Mafi Quotes - Page 2

Things are changing, but this time I'm not afraid. This time I know who I am. This time I've made the right choice and fighting for the right team. I feel safe. Confident

Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes im not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all

Tahereh Mafi

Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.It creeps up on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones,squeezing so tight you almost can’t breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out from every corner.It’s a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you’re struggling to stand up.You wake up in the morning and wonder who you are. You fail to fall asleep at night and tremble in your skin.

Tahereh Mafi

I have to get out of this room as soon as possible, or my own thoughts will wage war against me.

Tahereh Mafi

I am suspended in the moment. Flickering images faded with age, frozen thoughts hovering precariously in dead space, a whirlwind of memories that slice through my soul.

Tahereh Mafi

His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him.

Tahereh Mafi

Why are you touchin

Tahereh Mafi

Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was everything.Color, you see, was the universal sign of magic.

Tahereh Mafi

I think wow, I imagine this is what it's like to have friends.

Tahereh Mafi

I want you to make a list of all of your favorite things, and I want to be on it.

Tahereh Mafi

Right now I can't even control my own imagination as it grips my hair and drags me into the dark

Tahereh Mafi

Because it's so difficult to fight what you cannot control and right now I can't even control my own imagination as it grips my hair and drags me into the dark.

Tahereh Mafi

I made so many promises when I arrived here.Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm worried. Now my mind is a traitor because my thoughts crawl out of bed every morning with darting eyes and sweating palms and nervous giggles that sit in my chest, build in my chest, threaten to burst through my chest, and the pressure is tightening and tightening and tighteningLife around here isn't what I expected it to be.

Tahereh Mafi

Dear, sweet, beautiful girl,

Tahereh Mafi

Because it's so hard to be kind to the world when all you've ever felt is hate.

Tahereh Mafi

I hope he doesn't know he just touched my leg.And nothing happened.

Tahereh Mafi

Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before.

Tahereh Mafi

I do know that I don't want to wake him.We were up very late last night.

Tahereh Mafi

You will not be alone, I say to them, spinning to see their faces. You don't need to be afraid anymore. We want to take back our world. We want to save the lives of our family members, our friends. We want your children to have a chance at a better future. And we want to fight. We want to win. I lock eyes with them. And we are asking for your help.

Tahereh Mafi

The Sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us. The Moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It's always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Everyday it's a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of life. The Moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.

Tahereh Mafi

I lived in a really dark place. I wasn't safe in my own mind. I woke up every morning hoping to die and then spent the rest of the day wondering if maybe I was already dead because I couldn't even tell the difference.

Tahereh Mafi

Mother often said that she could never be bothered to understand why Alice did the things she did, and now, more than ever, Alice thought never being bothered was a very lazy way to love someone.

Tahereh Mafi

I want you to be happy," I tell him, my eyes searching his. 'I want you to have a family. I want you to be surronded by people who care about you," I say. 'You deserve that.

Tahereh Mafi

I’m a starving child trying to stuff my stomach, gorging my senses on the decadence of these moments as if I’ll wake up in the morning and realize I’m still sweeping cinders for my stepmother.But then Adam’s lips press against my head and my worries put on a fancy dress and pretend to be something else for a while.

Tahereh Mafi

I'm in love with you.""Good grief." She kept walking.

Tahereh Mafi

I count everything. Even numbers, odd numbers, multiples of 10. I count the ticks of the clock i count the tocks of the clock I count the lines between the lines on a sheet of paper. I count the broken beats of my heart I count my pulse and my blinks and the number of tries it takes to inhale enough oxygen for my lungs. I stay like this I stand like this I count like this until the feeling stops. Until the tears stop spilling, until my fists stop shaking, until my heart stops aching. There are never enough numbers.

Tahereh Mafi

My body is cracking from the pain I have swallowed so Many times, heaving with sobs I can no longer suppress, my dignity dissolving in my tears, the agony of these past few days ripping my skin to shreds.

Tahereh Mafi

The afternoon our story begins, the quiet parts of being alive were the busiest: wind unlocking Windows; rainlight nudging curtains apart; fresh-cut grass tickling unsocked feet. Days like this made Alice want to set off on a great adventure.

Tahereh Mafi

I never thought it would get this bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily removable, easily destroyed for disobedience.We have lost our humanity.

Tahereh Mafi

The moon is a loyal companion.It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.

Tahereh Mafi

Beautiful enough to lure in prey, he said. Strong enough to clamp down and destroy, he said.

Tahereh Mafi

She could see all of Ferenwood from here: the rolling hills, the endless explosion of color cascading down and across the lush landscape. Reds and blues: Maroon and ceruleans. Yellow and tangerine and violet and aquamarine. Every hue held a flavor, a heartbeat, a life. She took a deep breath and drew it all in.

Tahereh Mafi

How strange that we can go from friends to inseparable to hateful then casual all in one lifetime.

Tahereh Mafi

So,' he says. 'When's the big day? Have you set a date yet?''What?' I startle. 'For what?''For the day you're going to stop being such a dumbass,' he says shooting me a sharp look.'Oh.' I cringe. Kick at the air. 'Yeah, that'll probably never happen.''Yeah, you're probably right.''Shut up.

Tahereh Mafi

Kengi?""Yeah?"I take a deep breath. Try to count the stars. "What am I going to do?""About what?"I hesitate. "About everything."Kenji makes a strange sound. "Shit if I know.""I don't want to do this without you," I whisper.He leans back. "Who said you're going to do anything without me?"My heart skips a few beats. I stare at him."What?" he asks. Raises his eyebrows. "You're surprised?""You'll fight with me?" I ask him, hardly breathing. "Fight back with me? Even if it's with Warner?"Kenji smiles. Looks up at the sky. "Hell yeah," he says. "Really?""I'm here for you, kid. That's what friends are for.

Tahereh Mafi

Alice couldn’t explain why, exactly, but she knew now that things had changed between them. Oliver had become her friend in an absolute, uncomplicated way. She was done fighting him, and he was done lying to her.

Tahereh Mafi

Comamandering is not a word.It has letters, doesn't it? Sounds like a word to me.

Tahereh Mafi

Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extremely attractive man, J, but I am not Bruce Lee.”“Who’s Bruce Lee?”“Who’s Bruce Lee?” Kenji asks, horrified. “Oh my God. We can’t even be friends anymore.”“Why? Was he a friend of yours?”“You know what,” he says, “just stop. Just—I can’t even talk to you right now.

Tahereh Mafi

There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world," he says softly.

Tahereh Mafi

I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.

Tahereh Mafi

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

Tahereh Mafi

We're too different now. We want different things. And this?" I say nodding at our hands. "All this managed to prove is that you are extremely good at turning me off

Tahereh Mafi

Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?

Tahereh Mafi

So that's it?" Kenji says. "You just like him for his personality, huh?""What?""All of this," Kenji says, waving a hand in the air, "has nothing to do with him being all sexy and shit and him being able to touch you all the time?""You think Warner is sexy?""That is not what I said.

Tahereh Mafi

We're too different now. We want different things. And this?" I say nodding at our hands. "All this managed to prove is that you are extremely good at turning me off

Tahereh Mafi

Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?

Tahereh Mafi

Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one.

Tahereh Mafi

The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them.

Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell.

Tahereh Mafi

Hope.It's like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It's a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it's the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.

Tahereh Mafi

They filled our world with weapons aimed at foreheads and smiled as they shot 16 candles right through our future. They killed those strong enough to fight back and locked up the freaks who failed to live up to their utopian expectations.

Tahereh Mafi

And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background. Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run.Run run run until you can't hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette.Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you.Run, I said.

Tahereh Mafi

Because I was dying.　　And Warner could’ve let me die. He was angry and hurt and had every reason to be bitter. I’d just ripped his heart out; I’d let him believe something would come of our relationship. I let him confess the depth of his feelings to me; I let him touch me in ways even Adam hadn't. I didn't ask him to stop.　　Every inch of me was saying yes.　　And then I took it all back. Because I was scared, and confused, and conflicted. Because of Adam.　　Warner told me he loved me, and in return I insulted him and lied to him and yelled at him and pushed him away. And when he had the chance to stand back and watch me die, he didn’t.　　He found a way to save my life.　　With no demands. No expectations. Believing full well that I was in love with someone else, and that saving my life meant making me whole again only to give me back to another guy.　　And right now, I can’t say I know what Adam would do if I were dying in front of him. I’m not sure if he would save my life. And that uncertainty alone makes me certain that something wasn't right between us.

Tahereh Mafi

I’m not sure. But there’s something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, that creates a language of its own. There’s a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong moment, tricked by the darkness into thinking it will keep our secrets. We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we’d never say in the light.

Tahereh Mafi

I’m not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say.”“Yeah, and maybe I’m just saying that you have no idea what you’re saying.”“Whatever.”“Don’t whatever me—”“Whatever,” I say again.“Oh my God,” Kenji says to no one in particular. “I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked.”“You couldn’t kick my ass if I had ten of them.”Kenji laughs out loud. “Is that a challenge?”"It’s a warning,” I say to him.“Ohhhhhh, so you’re threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?”“Shut up, Kenji.”“Shut up, Kenji,” he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me.

Tahereh Mafi

Kenji has a hand pressed to his mouth, desperately trying to suppress a smile. He’s shaking his head, holding up a hand in apology. And then he breaks, laughing out loud, snorting as he tries to muffle the sound. “I’m sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together, shaking his head again. “This is not a funny moment. It’s not. I’m not laughing

Tahereh Mafi

Kenji snorts.“That’s because you’re not fragile,” Kenji says. “If anything, everyone needs to protect themselves from you. You’re like a freaking beast,” he says. Then adds, “I mean, you know—like, a cute beast. A little beast that tears shit up and breaks the earth and sucks the life out of people.

Tahereh Mafi

Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji?" me?

Tahereh Mafi

I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.

Tahereh Mafi

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