Jandy Nelson Quotes

Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it.

Emotions are messy and hard to figure out.

She went around with a broken heart, and she wasn't sure who'd broken it. She thought it was herself, mostly.

And it seemed to me that there were fires Flying till dawn without number And I never found out things-those Strange eyes of his-what colour? Everything trembling and singing and Were you my enemy or my friend, Winter was it or summer?

I rose to my knees, mouth dry and heart pounding, and paused to finger a rip in my beautiful Dacron bowling shirt. I pushed my fingertip through the hole and wiggled it at myself. Hello, Dexter, where are you going? Hello, Mr. Finger. I don't know, but I'm almost there. I hear my friends calling.

My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.

The heart and the mind, what an enigma.

I stare at him. I feel my heartbeat everywhere, even in my toes. I feel like doing something bold, but I could just as easily walk away. I am not sure which option is smarter, or better. I am not sure that I care.

If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.

I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was a part of me that enjoyed hating school, and the drama of not going, the potential consequences whatever they were. I was intrigued by the unknown. I was even slightly thrilled that my mother was such a mess. Had I become addicted to crisis? I traced my finger along the windowsill. 'Want something normal, want something normal, want something normal', I told myself.

I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everyone was, especially me.

Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.

Most men are like me. They cannot live in a universe where the most bizarre thought can in one second enter into the realm of reality--where, most often, it does enter, like a knife in a heart.

He's hell bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused, and his brain has been mismanaged with great skill.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

...Choice in every form is conflict. Contradiction is inevitable in choice; this contradiction, inner and outer breeds confusion and misery.

A friend told me to listen to my heart. Another friend told me to listen to my gut. Maybe I need an autopsy, because right now my colon is kind of iffy.

I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.

I would stare at the grains of light suspended in that silent space, struggling to see into my own heart. What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing.

There’s no doubt in my mind that McMurphy’s won, but I’m not sure what.

She wished she could understand her reaction to him. Why, her heart was pacing a wild beat again. Madelyne dared a quick look up and found Duncan was watching her intently. He looked so handsome. She wanted him to be ugly.

His heart, the war. Her face, the battlefield.

I want, I don’t want. How can one live with such a heart?

The front windows as are the watchmen of grief - I've been looking beyond expectation - Beyond myself - and I do not know as I love you - Which one of us is missing.

Fear, fear, breeds hopelessness. When you're afraid, you don't know what to believe in, you don't know what to hold on to. You're struggling to find something to believe in.