1,161 Quotes by Lauren Oliver

I used to lie here like this all summer long,” I tell her. “I’d come up here and just stare at the sky.” She rolls over on her back so she’s staring up as well. “Bet this view hasn’t changed much, has it?” What she says is so simple I almost laugh. She’s right, of course. “No. This looks exactly the same.” I suppose that’s the secret, ifyou’re ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up.

Hana’s voice is completely toneless. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. But she is lucky, whether she knows it or not.And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.You came from different starts and you’ll come to different ends : That’s an old saying, something Carol used to repeat a lot. I never really understood how true it was until now.

Lies are just stories, and stories are all that matter. We all tell stories. Some are more truthful than others, maybe, but in the end the only thing that counts is what you can make people believe.

And then, just at that moment, when I'm no longer sure if I'm dreaming or awake or walking some valley in between where everything you wish for comes true, I feel the flutter of his lips on mine, but it's too late, I'm slipping, I'm gone, he's gone, and the moment curls away and back on itself like a flower folding up for the night.

He pauses for only a fraction of a second. Then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine, and the whole world powers off, the moon and the rain and the sky and the streets, and it’s just the two of us in the dark, alive, alive, alive.

This is the mistake they make above. They think that only certain people habe a place. Only certain kinds of people belong. The rest is waste. But even waste must have a place. Otherwise it will clog and clot, and rot and fester.

It was the final, explosive demonstration of summer, the line in the sand, a desperate attempt to hold fall forever at bay. But autumn nibbled the blue sky with its teeth, tore off chunks of the sun, smudged out that heavy veil of meat-smelling smoke.

I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed.

But those are just words, and words are just stories, and eventually, always, stories come to an end.