Top 35 Abbie Emmons Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same.”

— Abbie Emmons

2. “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door; Or has it feathers like a bird, Or billows like a shore?”

— Abbie Emmons

3. “I feel like every beautiful thing in me has rotted and turned ugly. I’ve become things that I never wanted to become – things that I hate with every fiber of my being.”

— Abbie Emmons

4. “And, actually, I was feeling pretty good at the time. My brothers were like individual rays of sunshine that had come crashing into my room to drive out the fragments of Despair. For a few minutes, everything was golden. And everything was okay.”

— Abbie Emmons

5. “I feel my heart exploding. I feel the space between our faces disappear. We kiss. And it tastes like sunlight.”

— Abbie Emmons

6. “Letting go feels like giving up. But if you don’t let go, you’ll drown. I know the feeling. And it sucks. But Life sucks sometimes. And yeah, it gets back up. But you don’t have to stay on your knees.”

— Abbie Emmons

7. “Letting go feels like giving up, but if you don’t let go, you’ll drown.”

— Abbie Emmons

8. “The second road was rocky, hard, and painful. It was challenging. It was unnatural. It was a mountain range. It was a fighting ring, a boxing match with Life. It was a road that would make me stronger, even if it hurt. This road was called Happiness. It tasted like insanity, like How can I possibly be happy when I have every right to be miserable?”

— Abbie Emmons

9. “So much has been taken away from me. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve taken it away from myself. Am I choosing this? Choosing to sit on the floor and cry? Am I choosing to be defeated?”

— Abbie Emmons

10. “I am drowning again. But this time I don’t need help. I don’t need a rescue. Because I am drowning in perfect beauty. I am drowning in reckless joy. I’ve fallen out of the tree. And now, I fly.”

— Abbie Emmons

11. “But the unknown is something to look forward to.”

— Abbie Emmons

12. “I know nothing. I feel everything.”

— Abbie Emmons

13. “Besides, no one has ever seen the light by being told there are darker places out there.”

— Abbie Emmons

14. “It’s similar to the feeling of coming home after a long time away – everything is familiar, but different. Nothing has changed, yet everything seems new.”

— Abbie Emmons

15. “Visual beauty is only one form of beauty.”

— Abbie Emmons

16. “I would scream. I would break my mirror, smash it into a million little pieces. Then it would look like me. Because I’m not Tessa Dickinson anymore. I am a million little pieces of what used to be Tessa Dickinson.”

— Abbie Emmons

17. “I’ve missed the way she smiles – warm and constant, like the sun.”

— Abbie Emmons

18. “I love you and your broken wings.”

— Abbie Emmons

19. “Sunlight is exuberant. Thunderstorms are passionate. Two extremes, and so much better than nothing at all. Cloudy skies are like nothing at all. Apathetic. Numb. The feeling you feel when you have no idea what you feel. When everything has gone so wrong, it no longer feels wrong. There suddenly is no right or wrong. There’s just emptiness. It would be better for the clouds to cry, or better for the sun to shine. But curse this bearing wall where the sky is nothing at all.”

— Abbie Emmons

20. “The word trembles inside my chest, nervous, like a fledgling bird unsure of how to fly. I am the fledgling bird unsure of how to reply but the wind tastes wild and sweet up here in the trees. I want to know what will happen if I just let go. I want to know what will happen if I fly.”

— Abbie Emmons

21. “What a wondrous thing it is to create something beautiful without sight.”

— Abbie Emmons

22. “I clench my teeth together; I curl my toes. It’s the opposite of falling apart; the opposite of exploding. I’m like a star before it goes supernova. Collapsing inward.”

— Abbie Emmons

23. “You’ll do fine. Just... take your time. Words will come when they want to.”

— Abbie Emmons

24. “Tessa needs to learn how to punch Life in the face. She needs to learn how to hear. And taste. And smell. And feel. She needs to realize that there is more than one way to see the world. Sure, a lot has been taken away from Tessa – but not everything. She still has four other senses, four other ways to find the beauty in the world. I’ll teach her. I’ll teach her how to see the world without actually seeing the world. I’ll show her. Starting tomorrow.”

— Abbie Emmons

25. “Stare at this boy who can’t possibly be real – stare at this stubborn, patient, kind, obnoxiously optimistic boy. Stare at this boy I can’t imagine life without.”

— Abbie Emmons

26. “I wanted to talk about the two roads – the desert and the mountain range – and how everyone has a road to choose. And how most people choose the wrong road.”

— Abbie Emmons

27. “I’m beginning to put a gag on the voice in my head and listen more closely to the one in my heart.”

— Abbie Emmons

28. “I’m trying to stop a tidal wave with my bare hands. I’m standing on the beach, screaming into the darkness, and I’m alone. And I’m drowning.”

— Abbie Emmons

29. “This is when I usually crack a lame joke, like, “Yeah, sorry, I left my real legs at home.”

— Abbie Emmons

30. “And here I am, in the darkness, awake. Here I am, alone in my bed, with my heart aching, pounding, pushing against my rib cage. Here I am, with tears in my eyes and one hand pressed against my lips and a smile forming underneath my fingertips.”

— Abbie Emmons

31. “I’ve always been able to write much better than I can talk.”

— Abbie Emmons

32. “For a moment, I don’t say anything. I just think about his words. I let them hit me, one by one – I let them leave bruises.”

— Abbie Emmons

33. “We were both so weak. We were both so strong. We were boy soldiers, too young for war.”

— Abbie Emmons

34. “Pain shot through my body like a mortar round. Suddenly wide awake – and cussing like a Marine into the carpet under my mouth.”

— Abbie Emmons

35. “Weston slowly averts his gaze to the ground. He lets go of me and murmurs, “You can see, now, Tessa. What do you see?”

— Abbie Emmons

36. “My heart hasn’t stopped pounding – if anything, it’s only grown more chaotic. My pulse whooshes through my ears, and it’s dizzying and painful and wonderful, all at the same time.”

— Abbie Emmons

37. “Anger and regret and fear, that cocktail of chaotic emotions – it consumes me, burns me, blisters me. I want to cry; I want to see;.”

— Abbie Emmons

38. “But now sunlight is a ghost, felt not seen. Warm and patchy and inconsistent. That’s all it is. That’s all it ever was.”

— Abbie Emmons

39. “No, honey,” Grandpa says, squeezing my hand. “It means you’ve let go. It means you’ve decided to let go. The only thing you’re fighting is you. And if you keep fighting, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

— Abbie Emmons