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Lauren Oliver

Lauren Oliver Quotes

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AllPeopleKnowsIfsThinkingDeliriumFeelsWorldWayLoveDelirium Trilogy

Famous Lauren Oliver Quotes

“Do you want any breakfast, Sam?” my mom asks. I never eat breakfast at home, but my mom still asks me every day—when she catches me before I duck out, anyway—and in that moment I realize how much I love the little everyday routines of my life: the fact that she always asks, the fact that I always say no because there’s a sesame bagel waiting for me in Lindsay’s car, the fact that we always listen to “No More Drama” as we pull into the parking lot. The fact that my mom always cooks spaghetti and meatballs on Sunday, and the fact that once a month my dad takes over the kitchen and makes his “special stew,” which is just hot-dog pieces and baked beans and lots of extra ketchup and molasses, and I would never admit to liking it, but it’s actually one of my favorite meals. The details that are my life’s special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced. So many things become beautiful when you really look.”

BeautifulMomUniqueDetailsAlwaysPatterns Of LifeHandwoven RugsWhen You Look
Book:Before I Fall
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“For the first time in a long time, I actually look at her. I've always thought Lena was pretty, but now it occurs to me that at some point—last summer? last year?—she became beautiful. Her eyes seem to have grown even larger, and her cheekbones have sharpened. Her lips, on the other hand, look softer and fuller. I've never felt ugly next to Lena, but suddenly I do. I feel tall and ugly and bony, like a straw-colored horse.”

BeautifulChangeAppearanceUglyPrettyLookingLena HalowayComparedHana Tate
Book:Hana
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“I keep quiet and look out the window. The light is weak and watery-looking, like the sun hast just spilled itself over the horizon and is too lazy to clean itself up. The shadows are as sharp and pointed as needles. I watch three black crows take off simultaneausly from a telephone wire and wish I could take off too, move up, up, up, and watch the ground drop away from me the way it does when you're on an airplane, folding and compressing into itself like an origami figure, until everything is flat and brightly colored - until the world is like a drawing of itself”

ThoughtsFlyingEscapingBefore I FallLauren Oliver
Book:Before I Fall
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“I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my beautiful, big-eyed girls. But I worry about Rachel less. Rachel was always harder than Lena, somehow. More defiant, more stubborn, less feeling . Even as a girl, she frightened me—fierce and fiery-eyed, with a temper like my father’s once was. But Lena . . . little darling Lena, with her tangle of dark hair and her flushed, chubby cheeks. She used to rescue spiders from the pavement to keep them from getting squashed; quiet, thoughtful Lena, with the sweetest lisp to break your heart. To break my heart: my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. I wonder whether her front teeth still overlap; whether she still confuses the words pretzel and pencil occasionally; whether the wispy brown hair grew straight and long, or began to curl. I wonder whether she believes the lies they told her.”

WonderSweetCuriousFavoriteLessRachelLena Haloway
Book:Annabel
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“I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove. And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove. The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun—curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway—lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark. Alex was right. It was gorgeous—one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

SunSkySunsetDelirium TrilogyLena HalowayAlex Warren
Author:Lauren Oliver
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“I came to find you last night," Lena says more quietly. "When I knew there was going to be a raid...I snuck out. I was there when—when the regulators came. I barely made it out. Alex helped me. We hid in a shed until they were gone..." I close my eyes and reopen them. I remember wiggling into the damp earth, bumping my hip against the window. I remember standing, and seeing the dark forms of bodies lying like shadows in the grass, and the sharp geometry of a small she shed, nestled in the trees. Lena was there. It was almost unimaginable. "I can't believe that. I can't believe you snuck out during a raid—for me." My throat feels thick again, and I will myself not to start crying. For a moment I am overwhelmed by a feeling so huge and strange, I have no name for it: It surges over the guilt and the shock and the envy; it plunges a hand into the deepest part of myself and roots me to Lena.”

FeelingHelpShedSaveLena HalowayHana TateRaidSnuck Out
Book:Hana
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“Te voy a contar otro secreto, este es por tu propio bien. Puedes pensar que el pasado tiene algo que decirte. Puedes pensar que deberías escuchar, esforzarte por distinguir susurros, que deberías hacer lo imposible, inclinarte para escuchar la voz que murmura desde el suelo, desde los lugares muertos. Puede que pienses que ahí vas a encontrar algo, algo que comprender o a lo que encontrar un sentido. Pero yo sé la verdad. La conozco de las noches de frialdad. Sé que el pasado va a tirar de ti hacia abajo y hacia atrás, que te va a engañar con el susurro del viento y los gemidos de los arboles, que te va a impulsar a descifrar lo que no entiendes, a recomponer lo que estaba roto. No hay esperanza. El pasado no es más que una lastre. Se instala en tu interior como una piedra. Hazme caso. Si oyes que el pasado te habla, si sientes que tira de tu espalda y que te pasa por los dedos por la columna, lo mejor que puedes hacer, lo único, es correr”

InspirationalImportantDeliriumLauren Oliver
Book:Delirium
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“I want to apologize to you,” she says calmly. “Oh yeah? For what?” I don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She’ll be here, in the house . . . My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I’m worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn’t my concern, and it isn’t my fault, either. “For telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,” she says. “For telling them about you and Alex.” Just like that, my brain powers down. “What?" “I told them.” She lets out a tiny exhalation, as though saying the words has given her relief. “I’m sorry. I was jealous.” I can’t speak. I’m swimming through a fog. “Jealous?” I manage to spit out. “I—I wanted what you had with Alex. I was confused. I didn’t understand what I was doing.” She shakes her head again. I have a swinging, seasick feeling. It doesn’t make any sense. Hana—golden girl Hana, my best friend, fearless and reckless. I trusted her. I loved her. “You were my best friend.” “I know.” Again she looks troubled, as though trying to recall the meaning of the words. “You had everything.” I can’t stop my voice from rising. The anger is vibrating, ripping through me like a live current. “Perfect life. Perfect grades. Everything.” I gesture to the spotless kitchen, to the sunshine pouring over the marble counters like drizzled butter. “I had nothing. He was my one thing. My only—” The sickness surges up and I take a step forward, clenching my fists, blind with rage. “Why couldn’t you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?”

SorryBetrayalJealousNothingEverythingApologizeTellingLena HalowayAlex SheathesHana Tate
Book:Requiem
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“That’s it: That does it. I whirl around, furious, something deep and black and old rising inside of me. “Of course I’m scared. And I’m right to be scared. And if you’re not scared it’s just because you have the perfect little life, and the perfect little family, and for you everything is perfect, perfect, perfect. You don’t see. You don’t know.” “Perfect? That’s what you think? You think my life is perfect?” Her voice is quiet but full of anger. I’m tempted to move away from her but force myself to stay put. “Yeah. I do.” Again she lets out a barking laugh, a quick explosion. “So you think this is it, huh? As good as it gets?” She turns a full circle, arms extended, like she’s embracing the room, the house, everything. Her question startles me. “What else is there?” “Everything, Lena.” She shakes her head. “Listen, I’m not going to apologize. I know you have your reasons for being scared. What happened to your mom was terrible—”

FearBravery
Book:Delirium
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“Then someone knocks on the door, very clearly, four times. I pull away from Lena quickly. "What's that?" I say, dragging my forearm across my eyes, trying to get control of myself. Lena tries to pass it off as though she hadn't heard. Her face has gone white, her eyes wide and terrified. When the knocking starts up again, she doesn't move, just stays frozen where she is. "I thought nobody comes in this way." I cross my arms, watching Lena narrowly. There's a suspicious needling, pricking at some corner of my mind, but I can't quite focus on it. "They don't. I mean—sometimes—I mean, the delivery guys—" As she stammers excuses, the door opens, and he pokes his head in—the boy from the day Lena and I jumped the gate at the lab complex, just after we had our evaluations. His eyes land on me and he, too, freezes. At first I think there must be a mistake. He must have knocked on the wrong door. Lena will yell at him now, tell him to clear off. But then my mind grinds slowly into gear and I realize that no, he has just called Lena's name. This was obviously planned.”

CaughtScaredFrozenKnockingMeetingSurprisedVisitLena HalowayAlex SheathesHana Tate
Book:Hana
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