Top 150 Ann Liang Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Why? Was it – was it bad?” The words tumble out of my lips before I can stop them, like water gushing from a broken dam. I hate that this is always my first instinct: self-doubt, anxiety, the nagging feeling that I did something wrong.”

— Ann Liang

52. “I’ve always wanted that: to be looked up at, to be known by people I’ve never even spoken to before, to be special, distinct, standing up on the tallest, brightest platform. But only now do I realize that when you’re out in the open, alone under the lights, and everyone else is in the darkness, you make for such a terribly easy target.”

— Ann Liang

53. “But that’s the problem. If this goes on, I might just die of guilt. But if this ends, I already have too much to grieve. Somehow, despite all my rules and reservations, I’m already in too deep, so far lost in the waves that sinking feels easier than swimming.”

— Ann Liang

54. “Most sincere things feel at least a little embarrassing. It’s part of our defense mechanisms. Our heart’s way of protecting us from potential hurt.”

— Ann Liang

55. “Please, Sadie. I’m begging.”

— Ann Liang

56. “You’re so weird sometimes,” he says, and it somehow sounds more affectionate than I love you.”

— Ann Liang

57. “I can’t always say pretty things, and sometimes I tease you when really I just want you to look my way, and –.”

— Ann Liang

58. “Caz cups my face with one steady, slender hand and traces a gentle line down my cheek, and my mind – my mind teeters toward oblivion. My breathing betrays me. His ink-black eyes lock on mine, and I am staring up at him, half in shock and maybe awe. He’s unreasonably beautiful and he’s so close it makes me ache and I want him closer still. I want him even though I shouldn’t. I want him to want me too.”

— Ann Liang

59. “Step Three: Observe Him More Closely. The apparent logic behind this is that crushes are like mirages; they don’t hold well under intense scrutiny.”

— Ann Liang

60. “Fix this. It’s what I’ve always done, or tried to do. Fix the gap in my family, the holes in my life, patch everything up, smooth everything over.”

— Ann Liang

61. “Everything is temporary, Yan Yan. And all the more reason to seize whatever’s in front of you while it’s still there.”

— Ann Liang

62. “Because beneath my apprehension is the stronger, deeply ingrained need to be liked. To be accepted. To be forgiven. To be recognized as good. I’ll do anything to redeem myself.”

— Ann Liang

63. “There’s something almost therapeutic about the simple, repetitive motions, working alone in the peace of my room at night, smoothing out the thin squares of paper again and again under my palms, my Spotify playlist on loop in the background, the playlist Zoe and I made together before I left, with all our favorite artists: Taylor Swift and Jay Chou and BTS.”

— Ann Liang

64. “The only thing I ask is that we don’t ever become strangers, because I really – ” He breaks off. Clenches his jaw, fighting against some ineffable emotion. “I don’t think I could bear it, Leah. I don’t think my heart would be able to survive it.”

— Ann Liang

65. “I have never known anybody as completely as I know you, and yet I still want to sit next to you, draw close to you, closer. I want you to tell me every story, want to listen to you speak until the night sinks in the sky and the stars fade out. I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost.”

— Ann Liang

66. “Because to me, wanting has always been indistinguishable from pain.”

— Ann Liang

67. “Rejection is the most humiliating form of defeat. It’s a losing battle before it even begun.”

— Ann Liang

68. “He only seems to relax when I scoot forward, bring my hand lower down to his arm, and tell him what I’ve wanted someone to say to me for as long as I can remember. What I’m still waiting for someone to say. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

— Ann Liang

69. “And how many people under Heaven were really fortunate enough to know happiness? Happiness was a side dish, like the sweet, sticky rice cakes Mother made during the festivals, or the glutinous balls stuffed with rich sesame paste. But revenge – that was the salt of life. Necessary.”

— Ann Liang

70. “I really can’t stand it when people are angry at me. Like, I know it might be simple for others, but I can’t focus on anything else. I can’t just forget about it and go on with my own life. It’s like there’s something hard wedged inside my own chest. I’ll always feel guilty. I’ll always want to make amends.”

— Ann Liang

71. “They say that when I was born, all the wild geese flew down from the sky, and the fish sank beneath the waves, having forgotten how to swim. Even the lotus flowers in out gardens quivered and turned their heads away, so ashamed they were of their own diminished allure in my presence.”

— Ann Liang

72. “Because even though I’ve found Caz Song attractive on a physical level for a while now, my biggest turn-on has always been competence. And as it appears, Caz is unbelievably competent at his job.”

— Ann Liang

73. “It’s cruel, really, how the world tends to present its most beautiful parts to you when you’re so profoundly sad.”

— Ann Liang

74. “I will meet you again in every lifetime there is.”

— Ann Liang

75. “It’s a rare talent, the kind you can’t acquire through sheer determination and hard work” -Alice.”

— Ann Liang

76. “That’s the one thing I’ve worked for my entire life – to be someone who matters. That’s why my parents moved to this country. That’s my purpose. If I can’t do it, then what’s the point of anything? What’s the point of me? What possible value could I provide?”

— Ann Liang

77. “You’re still a kid, you know.”

— Ann Liang

78. “It’s my life, I think with amazement, and it’s beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to.”

— Ann Liang

79. “In the event that I do die in the middle of the night, I beg of you to not react by jumping up and down around my corpse,” Cyrus says flatly.”

— Ann Liang

80. “Whatever you say, my love.”

— Ann Liang

81. “You had to kiss me then kick me then fill my head with your voice.”

— Ann Liang

82. “Sadie, I’d hop on a sixteen hour plane ride to see you. An hour is nothing.”

— Ann Liang

83. “And isn’t it strange, I find myself marveling, how the safest I’ve ever felt is beside the boy I once considered the bane of my existence.”

— Ann Liang

84. “Something in me is missing. Lacking.”

— Ann Liang

85. “So beautiful and infuriating and confusing. So ready to split me open with a single word, stitch me up again with a fleeting touch.”

— Ann Liang

86. “How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.”

— Ann Liang

87. “You stare at your own face long enough and you’ll inevitably find something to hate about it.”

— Ann Liang

88. “The sun is bursting through my chest, breaking past my lips. It’s my life, I think with amazement, and it’s beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to. Right now it’s drenched in the brighest shade of gold. I have the brush in my hands, and the canvas is mine. It’s all mine.”

— Ann Liang

89. “You’re so driven. So determined. No matter what happens, you just have a plan and you do it- and you do it well too.”

— Ann Liang

90. “I think you’re obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.”

— Ann Liang

91. “Fanli. Flesh of my heart, light of my sun. He was here, in the enemy kingdom.”

— Ann Liang

92. “It’s a challenge. This is what we do, I realize. We talk in circles. We give each other riddles, confounding clues, half answers. Everything and anything but the truth.”

— Ann Liang

93. “They’ve bet everything on me- their time and energy and savings- and this is what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.”

— Ann Liang

94. “I always feel better when I look better.”

— Ann Liang

95. “Because when he is ahead of her, if just by one question, one mark, one inch, that is the only time he can be confident she’s watching nobody but him. That is the only way he can think of to hold her attention, to make her care, to keep her interested.”

— Ann Liang

96. “He’s leaving with Sadie Wen: his co-conspirator, his co-captain, his rival, his life’s great defining question and answer.”

— Ann Liang

97. “Every move I made premeditated, but still always miscalculating, offering up the wrong comment or opinion or idea. Days when I was too exhausted to sleep while someone else lived the life I dreamed of.”

— Ann Liang

98. “Sorry.” Sarah’s voice sounds smaller, muffled, like she’s holding the phone between her ear and shoulder. I think I hear the clatter of wood and a very quietly uttered expletive. “A – a painting of Jesus just fell to the ground for some reason. Weird.” If I were even kind of religious, I’d definitely see this as a bad omen.”

— Ann Liang

99. “It’s one of the many reasons I love being around Abigail. We can talk on the phone for five hours straight in the evenings, stopping only to grab our phone chargers or a glass of water, but we can also just sit together and watch the changing scenery through the window.”

— Ann Liang

100. “Sometimes I worry I’d bore you if I told you every single time I found you beautiful. But you are. Just so you know.”

— Ann Liang