Top 181 Quotes & Sayings by Lauren DeStefano

When I was growing up, there actually wasn't a lot of YA literature as it exists today. Most of the YA that I read was from the '60s and '70s, older than me.

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.

When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.

Most dystopian, classic and contemporary, paints a future world that puts a twist on present society - a future world that could plausibly happen.

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

Every generation has a macabre notion that wars, government prohibition, natural disasters or mankind itself could be the downfall of society and the world as a whole.

I realized how wonderful YA is and how I really wanted to write something that created that level of intrigue.

'Dystopian,' by definition, promises a darker story.

The trick was looking past the illusion, because the exit was never as far away as it seemed.

Dystopian, by definition, promises a darker story.

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

Even the human race can't claim to be natural anymore. We are fake, dying things. How fitting that I would end up in this sham of a marriage.

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?

We accept gods that don't speak to us. We accept gods that would place us in a world filled with injustices and do nothing as we struggle. It's easier than accepting that there's nothing out there at all, and that, in our darkest moments, we are truly alone.

In another time, in another place, I wonder who they might have been.

?I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.

A feeling can't kill you.

We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions

Perhaps... you love too fiercely.

You can't be afraid. You can be sad if you like. You can be angry. But it's the fear that'll freeze you in place.

Humans are the absolute worst thing to happen to this planet.

When we're alive, life consumes us. But when we die, all of the color and the motion is gone so quickly, it's as though it can no longer stand to be wasted on us.

There is a silence so great that I can hear the ice crystals cracking and falling from eyelashes of girls who will never blink again.

I wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didn't trust it with my secrets.

The months fall to shards at my feet.

My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.

But instead of tears, when I press my face against the pillow, a horrible, primal scream comes out of me. It's unlike anything I thought myself capable of. Rage, unlike anything I've ever known.

The madness of youth made me unafraid.

Words like 'unputdownable' and 'irresistible' are simply not enough for Cat Winters's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. Days after finishing this story, it remains the first thought I have in the morning, and the thing that haunts me until I sleep.

I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.

We writers are resilient souls.

What have you done? What have you given up?' So many things, Cecily. More than you know.

They never exhale, the trees; on a very windy day, they rustle and inhale, and then the leaves and the branches all tremble as though something means to strangle the life from them. The sky watches on. The world is filled with anticipation, as if to wonder if this day will be a great day, or a horrible day, or the last day.

We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.

There is a dark place calling to me, but I will not go just yet. I know I can't return from it.

I don’t have too many books, I have too little shelving.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

It is the face of a girl who has seen the world, who realizes that it hates her, and who hates it in return.

I like the idea of something greater than us. We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions. We are no closer to perfection than we were one hundred years ago, or five hundred.

The thing about hope is that it doesn't go away even when it serves no purpose.

She's beautiful and graceful, and she is very compassionate and loyal when you aren't responsible for the murder of her family.

I don't know if it was love or an illusion. I don't know if there's ever a way to be certain.

We'll squeeze every second that we can from our lives, because we're young, and we have plenty of years to grow. We'll grow until we're braver. We'll grow until our bones ache and our skin wrinkles and our hair goes white, and until our hearts decide, at last, that it's time to stop.

Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don't question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.

Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.

It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.

I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand.

He sits next to me, careful to avoid my hair that's splayed out around my head like blood. A bullet to the forehead, boom, blond waves everywhere.

You have a way of looking at things. You make it seem as though everything's going to be okay. I can't imagine a more dangerous thing to have than hope like yours.

She’s a commodity in a sea of broken girls.

But I know all the things you're too sweet to know.

I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.

I stare at her collarbone that's framed with lace, the hollow of her throat, her shoulders that rise with each rise with the weight of her next breath. We're fragile things. Our bones show through our skin. What would any god want with us?

Every star has been set in the sky. We mistakenly think they were put there for us.

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.

Childhood is a long, long road, from which that dark whispering forest of death seems an impossible destination.

I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds.

I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.

Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.