Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Erin Gruwell

Quote by Erin Gruwell

Work

The Freedom Writers Diary

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Erin Gruwell
Erin Gruwell

Erin Gruwell is an American teacher who gained widespread attention for her work at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. She is known for founding the 'Freedom Writers Club', which helped marginalized students express themselves through writing and inspired their potential. Her story was adapted into the film 'The Dead Poets Society'. more

You May Also Like

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. If we fix on the old, we get stuck. When we hang onto any form, we are in danger of putrefaction. Hell is life drying up.”

LifeChangeGracePlansAcceptanceMoving ForwardVitality
Book:A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
Create image

“Todd closed his eyes, then, and found himself picturing the other boy involuntarily—surprising himself with the intrusiveness of the thought. It was that fucking smile: there was something about the way the corners of Zack’s eyes had crinkled—the sincerity of it. Todd had felt that smile like it hurt. That smile was sparks. That smile was fireworks. That smile sizzled across the dark landscape of his soul, racing toward the shadows and lighting them up in brief eruptions of pure electric intensity, banishing the corruption in moments of flickering respite. Todd felt them coursing through him like thousands of tiny explosions. Like a squadron of gemstones erupting all at once into an armageddon of prismatic color. Like all that energy was going to carry him to some unknown destination where he could be weightless: wrapped in all its warmth and light and certainty forever and ever. And while he might not know where that place was he desperately needed to go there. To be there, always. Even if the process consumed him entirely. Even if it unmade him. Todd felt as though a sun erupted to life inside of him, then. He felt awake. Alive. And for the first time in so very long he felt the fullness of warmth filling him to the very boundaries of every expanse of himself—defiantly radiating against the cold and dark and shadow that had made it’s home across so much of him for so much of his life. And then—just like that—just as he’d arrived in Todd’s life: Zack was gone. And there was an emptiness that followed in the vacuum of the next few moments. A dark. And Todd felt it—deeply—as all those fireworks and all those sparks and all that color that had momentarily lit up so brilliantly across the insides of him lost the gravity that had once possessed it. The sparkle. And then it was just him there: Todd. Alone. But not entirely. Not ever. Because there was always that other thing. The shadowy thing. The one that he did his very best not to think about at all. It lived out along the wildest fringes of his mind—dancing along the tattered edges of the real—onyx eyes glittering, always. And it was hungry, too.”

Mm RomanceLgbtq RomanceRomance Gay
Book:Zack and Todd Versus the Missing Member
Create image

“Toby reached up and pulled Wayne down to kiss him. They kissed and wrapped their arms around each other, pulling each other closer until their bodies were like one. They spent the next hour using their hands, lips and tongues to explore each other’s bodies. Toby let go of his fear and let his passion and desire drive his actions. They were gentle, sweet and kind, yet fierce in their lovemaking. Afterwards, they curled up together under the same blanket and drifted off to a peaceful sleep, warm in each other’s arms.”

Lgbtq Romance
Book:Miles to Go
Create image