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Quote by Gabrielle Zevin

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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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Author

Gabrielle Zevin
Gabrielle Zevin

Gabrielle Zevin, born on October 24, 1977, is an American author whose works span across various genres, including novels, young adult literature, and adult fiction. She is admired for her unique narrative style and profound humanistic concerns. more

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“Tiger Lily's words echo in her head—He made me into the worst thing he could imagine, being grown up. Wendy brushes at her cheeks, furious with herself. She should be focused on Tiger Lily, but all she can picture is Peter's face as he stood at the end of Jane's bed, seeing her daughter and not her. No wonder Peter couldn't see her. She has become everything he hates. She looks at Tiger Lily again. Is that what Peter thinks growing up means? Becoming a shell with the ghost of the child you once were trapped inside?”

“I sigh, realizing that the boy I'm talking about is a different iteration of myself from a separate past life, removed from who I am here. All the previous me's have been chunked off, lopped into little figurines in a Dickens-style display that represent old hurts. Oh, how I want to take a bat to the table and smash them all to smithereens.”

“Al tempo non lo sapevo, che eravamo scuciti entrambi, rattoppati in modi diversi per resistere alla vita quanto bastava. Eravamo troppo giovani per realizzare che nel nostro disegno era stato cancellato qualcosa di fondamentale e che i nostri corpi cadevano male sulle nostre anime, mettendo in risalto ogni difetto. Lui, nella solidità della sua forma, conteneva a stento venti in tempesta; io avevo ossa sporgenti pronte a bucarmi la pelle e riversare fuori il dentro: la tristezza, l’indefinito, il bisogno.”

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

“Because if someone had told me when I was younger that it was OK to not be like everybody else, that it was not my job to try to be "normal" and to "fit in," that my way of seeing the world was just as valid and important as everybody else's, then I think I would have found growing up a lot easier.”

“HOW DO ANY of us turn into adults, with real grown-up lives and real grown-up relationships? Mostly through trial and error, it would seem. By just figuring it out. Many of us, I think, puzzle out our identities only over time, figuring out who we are and what we need in order to get by. We approximate our way into maturity, often following some loose idea of what we believe grown-up life is supposed to look like. We practice and learn, learn and practice. We make mistakes and then start over again. For a long time, a lot feels experimental, unsettled. We try on different ways of being. We sample and discard different attitudes, approaches, influences, and tools for living until, piece by piece, we begin to better understand what suits us best, what helps us most.”

“The lipsticks that I own are steeped in sex and blood. In my collection, I have Lady Danger; Relentlessly Red; Good to Go. Cosmo tells me early on that the painted mouth is supposed to evoke the labia, voluptuous and slightly parted, and the names of my lipsticks bear this out: they are unequivocal. There are fast cars, dangers, and passion. There is fire, lust, anger poppies, roses, all of them packed into small, dark tubes.”