Tahereh Mafi quotes:

Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment.He has a soft spot for fashion.

The drawers in my mind are rattling to break open. Memories. Theories. Whispers and sensations. I shove them off a cliff.

And maybe if I can find a way to stop being scared, I'll actually figure out how to make friends. To be strong. To stop wallowing in my own problems.

Fun fact #1 about pomegranates: Pomegranates are awesome.Fun fact #2: Pomegranates are like little explosions of awesome in your mouth.Fun fact #3: A lot of people think you're not supposed to eat the seeds of a pomegranate - but that's not true, people who tell you that are liars, and they don't know anything about life, and they should never be trusted.

Why are you touching me?Because I can.

While a part of me wants to know, another part of me is too exhausted to ask.

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.

I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters.

They say there were birds who used to soar through the skies like planes.It seems strange that a small animal could achieve anything as complex as human engineering, but the possibility is too enticing to ignore.

And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.

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

I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.

The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us. The moon is a loyal companion.

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

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.

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

We've been shattered and reconstructed, told to make an effort every single day to pretend we still function the way we're supposed to. But it's a lie, it's all a lie; every person, place, thing and idea is a lie. I do not function properly. I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.

On the bleakst days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give theam a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again. (p. 193)"

His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever. Because this. This is everything.

I didn't want the clothes or the perfect shoes or the expensive anything. I didn't want to be draped in silk. All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

Take me back," I tell him, shifting a little. The world tilts and steadies all at once"Alert the medics and have a bed prepared for our arrival. In the meantime, elevate my arm and continue applying direct pressure to the wound. The bullet has broken or fractured something, and this will require surgery.

He and I would end up like water going nowhere. Water that never moves-- It's fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it'll sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic. I need waves. I need waterfalls. I want rushing currents."

I am nothing but novocaine. I am numb, a world of nothing, all feeling and emotion gone forever. I am a whisper that never was."

But he grins, so brilliantly, not even paying attentionI love it when you say my name," he saysI don't even know why." "Warner isn't your name," I point outYour name is *****." His smile is wide, so wideGod, I love that.""Your name?""Only when you say it.""*****? Or Warner?"His eyes close. He tilts his head back against the wall. Dimples."

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."

Regentropfen erinnern mich daran, dass Wolken einen Herzschlag haben.

If it were nothing but sexual attraction I'm sure I would not suffer such unbearable humiliation. But I wanted so much more than her body.

My legs feel full of sand and stapled together, my mind overflowing with grains of indecision, choices unmade and impatient as time runs out of my body. The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time towake upwake upWake up, he whispers.

Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?

Ah, Ms. Ferrars. I don't know what you hope to accomplish by sitting in the corner.

He held you captive and managed to fall in love with you in the process.

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

And though I've always believed she and I shared many things in common. I did not know how deeply I could feel it.It's killing me.

I'm not interested in waiting around and risking the who-knows and the what-ifs and the huge regrets. I want to feel all of it....

The only existence I know now is the one I was given. An echo of what used to be.

It sounds crazy, to think that I cared so much without ever talking to you.

Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles

Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch.

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

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.

And some days I wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive.

His smile is laced with dynamite.

I hate the lackadaisical ennui of a sun too preoccupied with itself to notice the infinite hours we spend in it's presence. The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it's tired of us

It's strange. How hollow i feel. Like there might be echoes inside of me. Like I'm one of those chocolate rabbits they used to sell around Easter, the ones that were nothing more than a sweet shell encapsulating a world of nothing. I'm like that. I encapsulate a world of nothing.

It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

Lift your hips for me, love.

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

I touch the tip of my finger to his lips. "There are secrets in here," I say. "I want them out."He tries to bite my finger.I steal it back.

The tattoo is just setting below his hp bone. H e l l i s e m p t y a n d a l l t h e d e v i l s a r e h e r eI kiss my way across the words.Kissing away the devils.Kissing away the pain.

I love you," I whisper. "I love you exactly as you are.

I grieve nothing. I take everything.

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.

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.

Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can't help but try to collect the change and hope it's enough to pay for our mistakes.

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

We are synonyms but not the same.

I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time.

A handful of letters doesn't always make a word, love.

Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.

Friendship is not a thing I have ever experienced. Not as a child, and not as I am now.

Girls are always talking about electricity in their romance, but none are too happy to actually be electrocuted, apparently. Bloody confusing, is what it is.

His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him. In seventeen years no one has said my name like that

Hope can make people do terrible things.

Hope in this world bleeds out of the barrel of a gun.

Hope is a pocket of possibility. I'm holding it in my hand.

Hope will break your heart all over again.

I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

I can do anything I want. Be with anyone I want. And it'll be my choice.

I feel like I've been split open and stuffed with sunshine.

I have a heart, says science, but I am a monster, says society.

I love you exactly as you are.

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.

I tuck caution into my pocket and hope I can reach for it if I need to.

I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend. The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body. I want to know where to touch you, I want to know how to touch you. I want to know convince you to design a smile just for me. Yes, I do want to be your friend. I want to be your best friend in the entire world.

I want to smash this concrete world into oblivion. I want to be bigger, better, stronger. I want to be the bird that flies away.

I've come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotions that make us weak, not our actions.

I'm wondering how many more mistakes I'll have to make before things finally fall into place. If they ever will.

In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.

Insane for your sweet, sweet love!

It's hot rain and humid days and broken thermostats. It's screaming and raging steam engines and wanting to take your clothes off just to feel a breeze. It's the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.

My mind is a warehouse of carefully organized human emotions. I lock away the things that do not serve me.

My words wear no parachutes as they fall out of my mouth.

On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give them a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again.

Only an idiot would rely on the energy of a bean or a leaf to stay awake throughout the day.

People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their validation.

People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time.

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

Sometimes you have to learn how to shoot first.

Synonyms know each other like old colleagues, like a set of friends who've seen the world together. They swap stories, reminisce about their origins and forget that though they are similar, they are entirely different, and though they share a certain set of attributes, one can never be the other. 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 because the way they wedge themselves into a sentence changes everything.

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.

The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them.

The world is a mess and I want to laugh because all I can think is how horrible and beautiful it is, that our eyes blur the truth when we can't bear to see it.

This pen is my only outlet, my only voice, because I have no one else to speak to, no mind but my own to drown in and all the lifeboats are taken and all the life preservers are broken and I don't know how to swim I can't swim I can't swim and it's getting so hard. It's getting so hard. It's like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what's the point of screaming if you'll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in here. No one will ever hear me again.

Time goes on even when we do not.

Torture is not torture when there's any hope of relief.

Why sleep when there are books to read.

You deserve to live. You deserve to be alive.