Lauren Oliver Quotes

Just take me with you. Please. I cant. Please, Papa. I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant.

My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

...This fear was unbearable. It unwrapped who she was, as neatly as he'd unwound her bandage, leaving too much pain and ugliness exposed. Nerve endings; he'd said they were the problem [causing phantom pain in the amputated limb]." Things that cut off, that ended abruptly or died--like parents and marriages--kept hurting forever.

I have seen things in my life that have broken me in spirit.

Looking at suicide—the sheer numbers, the pain leading up to it, and the suffering left behind—is harrowing. For every moment of exuberance in the science, or in the success of governments, there is a matching and terrible reality of the deaths themselves: the young deaths, the violent deaths, the unnecessary deaths

After each dream, Frankie woke with a start, soaked in tears. But she found no relief in the peaceful silence of her room, because there everything was real. And the guilt was too immense to bear. Each time she opened her eyes, she'd quickly shut them. And wish that she had woken up for the very last time.

Remembering is only a new form of suffering.

By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.

Nothing was working, and my friend was dead, and I didn't want to look at that.

I mean, I felt terrible. And in the beginning, I mean, I was completely devastated. I mean, can you imagine the kind of guilt that you would feel, and the responsibility?

Suicide doesn't solve your problems. It only makes them infinitely, un-countably worse.

That is how prison is tearing me up inside. It hurts every day. Every day takes me further from my life.

Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

I just lost my best friend, I have been crying hysterical for a full day.

All I know is it destroyed my family, it destroyed my marriage to Sylvester and I will never get over it.

There's some things I can't write about, just terrible personal tragedies.

All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.

Some of my memories will never return. They are lost - along with the crippling feeling of defeat and hopelessness. Not a tremendous price to pay.

I know what it's like to lose.

When my mother told me they have to sell me, I couldn't breathe; I couldn't speak.

Remembering. Forgetting. I'm not sure which is worse.

There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again.

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.

Rightly tired of the pain İ hear and feel, boss... where we's comin from or goin to or why... If İ could end it, İ would. But İ can't.

When I'm in pain and grief and despair, my throat is clenched and my heart hurts.