Ellen Hopkins quotes:

Christmas is far and away my favorite holiday. I love everything about it, from the event that inspired it, hoping for a white one, to wrapping presents. But mostly I love having family and friends gathered, and sharing traditions.

I 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?

People inspire me. Everyone is such an individual and has unique stories. I'm a voyeur. I eavesdrop. Sometimes I ask questions. And sometimes people just want to tell me their stories.

Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

The first time I kissed you. One kiss, and I was totally hooked. Addicted to you. I could never love anyone the way I love you. I'd follow you across the universe.

I 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.

Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.

Love means holding on to someone just as hard as you can because if you don't, one blink and they might disappear...forever.

...what good would it do to shutter your windows, never dream of rainbows or find hope in promises? Why choose to walk away rather than hold your ground and fight for love?

I never went to Albuquerque expecting to find love. I thought it had found me there, followed me home. I never came home expecting to lose love in the space of one brief telephone call. Is it always so short-lived?

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

And 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.

Then teach me how to not care about someone who was everything to me. All I want is to know she's okay. Is that too much to ask?

Believe 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.

You are a gift to all who know you, whether or not they realize it. If they don't, they are blind. You have a special place in this world. All you have to do is find it. Do not give up on yourself, or the truths you have realized. Do not give in to those who could crush your dreams like nutshells. And never turn away from forever love.

Possibilities ...in the closet ...itching ...to break out ...but afraid of ...the fallout

Freedom 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.

Heart Breaking, I think that if Dad, staring down the sight of a 10mm, would only tell me he loves me, I could easily change my mind... ...but he won't.

I write books for young adults because I truly connect with them on some very deep level. They are our hope, our future, and inspiring them to be the best they can be is very important to me.

Life was radical right after I met the monster.Later, life became harder, complicated.Ultimately, a living hell, like swimming against a riptide,Walking the wrong direction in the fast lane of the freeway, Waking from sweetest dreams to find yourself in the middle of a nightmare."

What's the point of being a hero when everyone thinks you're a villain?

I hide hurt behind a fake smile. I wear it all the time. Everyone says how I always look so cheerful. Shows what they know I guess.

Parenting should be a passion, not a part-time pursuit.

Tying the know means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.

The truth is, I've always been afraid of letting anyone get too close. I built a wall around me, a barricade to hide behind those few times someone wanted entry to my heart.

He 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.

Easier, sometimes, to gulp down giant spoonfuls of uncertainty than it is to swallow throat-clogging capsules of what really is.

Some secrets can't be kept too long. No matter how hard you try to hide them, sooner or later they scurry out from your cupboards, cockroaches on the run.

I need to capture my sprite with trembling hands. Except I could crush her. Wonder how many small things of beauty - flowers, seashells, dragonflies - have met such a demise. Wonder how much fragile love has collapsed beneath the weight of confession.

HAPPY EVER AFTER is a concept I'll never believe in. I would be content to sample some little taste of happiness today, tonight, right now. Though I know without a doubt that tomorrow will come saturated with pain. Life is like that. At least my life. And honestly, I cant think of anyone whose life is any different. The price tag for joy is misery. [...]

If all you can promise me is today, I'll take it and hope for tomorrow.

The problem with being grounded is it gives you a whole lot of unavoidable time to think. NOt even pulling weeds can take away your ability to plot all the varied and wonderful things you might do to get even, or at least to make up, just get a smidgen for time lost to TV and yard work and house cleaning.

I love you so much when i see you i get butterflies

I swallow any sort of apology. "screwing your neighbor." There. Said it. React, okay? pregnant pause becomes three weeks overdue. Four weeks. Time for a C-section. What? Oh, Kaeleigh, I'm so sorry. Are you sure...?

I wish I were worthy of his love. (Any love.)I should tell him to run. But I can't. I need him.

I still care for you, you know.. That phrase again. Everyone cares for me. They just don't know how to love me.

God i've missed you. I can't wait to give you your present. He kisses me hotter this time, and beneath me, through his denim and mine. I can feel the promise of his Christmas gift soon to come.

Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.

Sad, that lives can be shattered, into so many pieces that they can never be put back together, the the relentless force of love. Irreparable.

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."

Sometimes the little things in life mean the most.

God is love," she said. "And he respects love, whether it's between a parents, and child, a man and woman, or friends. I don't think he cares about religion one little bit. Live your life right. Love with all your heart. Don't hurt others, and help those in need. That is all you need to know. And don't worry about heaven. If it exists, you'll be welcome.

Love without trust is nothing more than infatuation.

Afraid to Die Loveless Because I think if you die without knowing love in this life, that's how you'll spend eternity. Alone. Frozen.

It wasn't my first kiss, maybe it wasn't my best kiss, but it was pretty fine, and the fact that he had asked will forever make that kiss stand out in my mind, touch my heart, make me remember a kiss so tender it made me cry.

Despite 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.

The Screaming flashed me back to a time when mom and dad were still together if you could call miles apart together.

I 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)

you fly until you crash two days two nights no sleep, no food, come down off the monster YOU CRASH REAL HARD

Perfection I've lived with the pretense of perfection for seventeen years. Give my room a cursory inspection, you'd think I have OCD. But it's only habit and not obsession that keeps it all orderly. Of course, I don't want to give the impression that it's all up to me.

Face red, but brave in spite of it, Ethan offered an even smaller box. My hands shook as i opened it. Set in a gold promise ring, three small diamonds glittered. One for you, one for me, one for us, he said sweetly. I love you.

Torch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.

A breeze blows up, touching my cheek like a little child's kiss. It flutters a piece of paper. "Trash, out there? Must belong to one of us." We move closer, and when I reached for it, I find...... a perfect paper airplane.

....a perfect paper airplane.

This time when we kiss, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel it in my heart. And I realize love isn't about sex. It's about connection.

I know he wants to get serious. He's definitely not a player, not a poser, not a loser, not a user.

Puzzle pieces don't always connect do they?

Honesty. Sobriety. My virginity. No way to regain the first two, I almost gave away the last.

in a woman's womb.another chance.to make the world better.

Sometimes,you don't wake up.But if you happento, you know thingswill never bethe same.

Good thing loving someone doesn't require caring about their parents.

The longer we try to hold on to each other, the more it will hurt when we finally fall apart.

Why does time erode relationships? Is there a way to avoid its relentless lapping? Is any love strong enough to withstand the chipping away?

Back turned, you don't have to look at what you've left behind. And the person who first turned their back on you can't watch you break down and cry. Never allow an enemy to see weakness in you.

Starving for a high, a place to hang out inside my own head. Starving for touch. Pain, even. A way to feel. I need to feel.

Why are we here? Is there, really, some intelligent design? Why do we cry for someone who leaves us, if there's some Grand Pearly Gate in the sky? Why worry about how we build our lives if the ultimate ending for all is death, a single breath away?

I do have friends, but they don't know me, only someone I've created to take my place. Someone sculpted from ice.

I felt angry, frustrated.I felt I didn't belong, not in my,church, not in my home, not in my skin.

A word to the unwise.Torch every book.Char every page.Burn every word to ash.Ideas are incombustible.And therein lies your real fear.

Fireworks. Snowflakes. Sunstroke and frostbite. It was all that I could ask for and completely unexpected. I expected demands. He gifted me with tenderness. I expected ego. He let me experiment. I expected disrespect. He called me beautiful. I expected him to expect perfection. He taught me all I needed to know.

The problems with lies is they start to pile up, one on top of another, until it's hard to find your way out from under the heap.

Real love finds you once, if you're lucky.

Happiness, 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.

I'd sleep outside naked in the blizzard,for you.

I've been alone since my mom met Scott.He sucked the nectar from her heartlike a famished butterfly. No nurture,no nourishment left for Kristina.A vacation is a poor substitutefor love.

You were a summer gift, one I'll always treasure. You were a dream I never wanted to wake up from. You opened my eyes to things I'll never really see. You're the best thing that will ever happen to me.

I 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~?

She is angle. I am curve. Together, we are geometric sculpture, and we make perfect sense.

I feel like a goddess, jailed in her Olympus. Little wonder how the gods toyed with humans. Toyed with women, to watch them squirm, pollinate the seeds of despair; toyed with men, to satiate their Seven Deadly Sins.

Paradise A concept embraced by almost every culture. A land of peace and harmony. Some say it doesn't belong to the earth, that there is no Shangri-la, no utopian wilderness for the living.

When you've only got one little shimmer of sunshine, you capture it best you can.

Life 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.

Alone, there is only the person inside. I've grown to like her better than the stuck-up husk of me. Alone, there is no perfect daughter, no gifted high school junior, no Kristina Georgia Snow. There is only Bree." (Ellen Hopkins)

And if candor strikes to forcefully, step back, draw careful breath, and consider the angle your words must take before you open your mouth, let them leak out. Because once you tilt the truth, it becomes a lie.

TRIAD: Three separate highways intersect at a place no reasonable person would ever want to go. Three lives that would have been cut short, if not for hasty interventions by loved ones. Or Fate. Three people, with nothing at all in common except age, proximity, and a wish to die. Three tapestries, tattered at the edges and come unwoven to reveal a single mutual thread.

Why 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...

In control. Out of control. Sometimes they're the same thing. The trick is knowing that, realizing it's okay to feel out of control once in a while, as long as you're sure you can regain the upper hand when you absolutely need to.

And 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.

For short term relaxation, I take a hot tub. It's my best way to unblock writers' block, too. For a bit longer relaxation, I enjoy camping. Just being in the wilderness, with no phones or computers or anything I have to do really refreshes my spirit.

Believe 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.

I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.

She's incredible, not that she's perfect. But you once said imperfections create character.

I can see why she feels left behind. Maybe even discarded. Is that why she refuses to accept my love and return it? Afraid that love doesn't last? Doesn't really exist? Afraid if her own father can withdraw his love (or at least the manifestation of his love), that maybe she somehow isn't worthy of the emotion?

Disappointment 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.

Eventually, 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.

The problem with resolutions is they're only as solid as the person making them.

Anger is easier than forgiveness.

It's probably weird to think about an addiction like it's a sentient being, but that's how it feels. Like it's something living inside you. Something you can't get rid of because killing it means killing you.

All I can do is lie here, brain turning somersaults. It's nights like these when memories stir, whipping themselves into stiff peaks of pain.

Some people never find the right kind of love. You know, the kind that steals your breath away, like diving into snowmelt. The kind that jolts your heart, sets it beating apace, an anxious hiccuping of hummingbird wings

Forgiveness is easy. Trust is much more difficult, and should never be given lightly.

Scientists say every action initiates an equal and opposite reaction. I say that's just the start. I say every action initiates a most unequal and upredictable chain reaction, that every filament of living becomes part of a larger weave, while remaining identifiable. That every line of latitude requires several stripes of longitude to obtain meaning. That every universe is part of a bigger heaven, a heaven of rhythm and geometry, where a heartbeat is the apex of a triangle.

Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.

Funny thing about the monster. The worse he treats you, the more you love him.

The wind kicks in stronger, branches clatter. Or maybe skeletons. Bones of abandonment. Ghosts that will never be.

I don't need more pain in my life. Why did I invite it in? Do I have to feel pain to believe I feel anything at all?

he sucked the nectar from her heart like a famished butterfly.

you come home, and everyone talks at once and everyone asks questions, but no one waits for the answers.Instead they talk about themselves, what they've been up to, what they're going to do next, as if you're a photo on the wall.And then they talk to one another, forgetting you've jsut flown in, forgetting you're in the backseat, forgetting they've already said it all.

HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so WHY push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is WHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway, WHEN did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person WHO lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you - WHAT is perfect.

I want the part of you that you refuse to give.

Anger is a valid emotion. It's only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don't want to do.

Or might the soul clone itself, create a perfect imitation of something yet to be defined? In this way, can a reflection be altered?

I can't change what has happened in the past, Kaeleigh. I can only promise to make the future better.

Girls 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.

In 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.

Only by confronting your demons can you ever hope to conquer them.

Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way. Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn. And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light.

In 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.

Wish 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.

imperfections create character...