34 Quotes by Ali Benjamin

Maybe this is what happens when a person grows up. Maybe the space between you and the other people in your life grows so big you can stuff it full of all kinds of lies.

But a person doesn’t always know the difference between a new beginning and a forever sort of ending.

A person can become invisible simply by staying quiet.

What is it about you that makes you able to love creatures that no one else can?

If people were silent, they could hear the noise of their own lives better. If people were silent, it would make what they did say, whenever they chose to say it, more important. If people were silent, they could read one another’s signals, the way underwater creatures flash lights at one another, or turn their skin different colors.

The more fragile the animal, the more it needs to protect itself. So the more venom a creature has, the more we should be able to forgive that animal. They’re the ones that need it most. And, really, what is more fragile than a jellyfish, which doesn’t even have any bones?

It was exactly one month since the Worst Thing had happened, and almost as long since I’d started not-talking. Which isn’t refusing to talk, like everyone thinks it is. It’s just deciding not to fill the world with words if you don’t have to. It is the opposite of constant-talking, which is what I used to do, and it’s better than small talk, which is what people wished I did.

There are so many things to be scared of in this world: blooms of jellies. A sixth extinction. A middle school dance. But maybe we can stop feeling so afraid. Maybe instead of feeling like a mote of dust, we can remember that all the creatures on this Earth are made from stardust.

All the creatures on Earth might be made from stardust. But we are the only ones who get to know it. That’s the thing about jellyfish: They’ll never understand that. All they can do is drift along, unaware. We humans may be newcomers to this planet. We may be plenty fragile. But we’re also the only ones who can decide to change.