Top 120 Francesca Zappia Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Maybe that’s normal. The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.”

— Francesca Zappia

52. “Do you ever have an idea for a story, or a character, or even a line of dialogue or something, and suddenly it seems like the whole world is brighter? Like everything opens up, and everything makes sense?”

— Francesca Zappia

53. “Real people don’t have concise character arcs.”

— Francesca Zappia

54. “She drew so many monsters that she became a monster herself.”

— Francesca Zappia

55. “I don’t want to be the girl who freezes when confronted with new friends, or the outside world, or the smallest shred of intimacy. I don’t want to be alone in a room all the time. I don’t want to feel alone in a room all the time, even when there are other people around.”

— Francesca Zappia

56. “Do you think the lobsters in the tank try to help the other lobsters? Is that why they pile up like that? Or is it just for company, because they know they’re all doomed? Better.”

— Francesca Zappia

57. “It’s a strange feeling to like someone so much and yet be terrified to have them in your space, touching you. It isn’t that I don’t like it when we touch- when we brush arms or when he taps me on the shoulder or when I pick a piece of lint off his shirt. I like it too much. My body gets excited without my permission, and it’s not okay. It’s out of control.”

— Francesca Zappia

58. “Blank pages are supposed to be an invitation. A challenge, even. Here is your canvas – how creative can you be? What limits can you stretch to bring to life that creature in your head? A blank piece of paper is infinite possibilities.”

— Francesca Zappia

59. “If nothing’s real, then what does it matter?” he said. “You live here. Doesn’t that make it real enough?”

— Francesca Zappia

60. “He gets that talking is easier when there’s a screen or even a piece of paper between you and the person you’re talking to.”

— Francesca Zappia

61. “It looked like the kind of dog that ate babies for breakfast, old men for lunch, and virgin sacrifices for dinner.”

— Francesca Zappia

62. “Sometimes I think people take reality for granted.”

— Francesca Zappia

63. “Have you ever seen it in your parents? That moment when they become people? I think you have. It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? One day they’re parents, and the next they say something racist, or get a cut that takes too long to heal, or make a simple mistake driving, and a facade falls away and they become mortals like the rest of us. After the facade is gone, it can never come back” -Wallace.”

— Francesca Zappia

64. “How could anyone go this far down the rabbit hole without realizing they needed help?”

— Francesca Zappia

65. “Panic disorder? I don’t have panic disorder. Panic disorder was a thing that came up in my psychology elective last year. I read like half a paragraph on it.”

— Francesca Zappia

66. “I’m not normally one to take advice from my fictional characters, but there comes a point in every girl’s life where she reaches a crossroads: a night alone with her sweatpants and her favorite television show, or a party with real, live, breathing people.”

— Francesca Zappia

67. “There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt. The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster, though, is smart. It’s always watching, and when I am completely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. Even when I know it’s coming, I can’t stop it.”

— Francesca Zappia

68. “Wallace stares at the field for a long second, then turns back and, before I can react, leans down to kiss me. He tastes like sweat and lemonade. It’s quick. Easy. He pulls away, eyes down, voice soft. “Surprise,” he says. The relief registers. I wrinkle my nose and laugh. “Like hell.” “Please, you know you love this.” He flaps his sweaty shirt in my direction before turning and jogging back. “I love you,” I say, but he’s too far away to hear it. That’s okay. He knows.”

— Francesca Zappia

69. “Our neighbors turned to stare at us, because Miles Richter laughing was one of those things that the Mayans had predicted would signal the end of the world. He wasn’t particularly loud about it, but it was Miles laughing, a sound no mortal had ever heard before.”

— Francesca Zappia

70. “Anyone who thinks that’s an easy way out hasn’t had to face it.”

— Francesca Zappia

71. “Stop calling me a Nazi.” “Why should I?” Miles’s hand came down on the desk. “Because the systematic slaughter of millions of people isn’t funny!”

— Francesca Zappia

72. “I can empathize with characters. Real people are harder. Real people don’t have concise character arcs.”

— Francesca Zappia

73. “How can you be mad that something doesn’t happen, when it would hurt another person? If she had to quit for her health, then I’m glad she did. You shouldn’t have to kill yourself for your art.”

— Francesca Zappia

74. “Do you ever feel,” he said, “like there’s something wrong with the world but you don’t know what it is?”

— Francesca Zappia

75. “You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn’t even have a bike rack.”

— Francesca Zappia

76. “I’m not saying you can’t do writing, just do some writing that you can build a career on. Creative writing isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

— Francesca Zappia

77. “If I like a book, I devour it in one sitting, and then I forget a lot. It’s fine with me, because I read them over and over again.”

— Francesca Zappia

78. “That computer is my rabbit hole; the internet is my wonderland.”

— Francesca Zappia

79. “Thank god. I thought I had cabin fever or something.” “High school fever.” “High school fever: like The Shining, but with teenagers.”

— Francesca Zappia

80. “Creating art is a lonely task, which is why we introverts revel in it, but when we have fans.”

— Francesca Zappia

81. “I start to say no, then stop myself. I have to try. I have to try, because I’m doing it again-I’m shutting everything out because I’m frustrated and tired and because the real world is difficult and I’d rather live in one of my own making. But I can’t. I am here, and I have to try.”

— Francesca Zappia

82. “There is no force in high school more powerful than one person’s blunt disagreement.”

— Francesca Zappia

83. “You don’t go looking for the truth to be happy. You go looking so that you know.”

— Francesca Zappia

84. “Honey, your father’s just saying that, you know, this is the first time you’ve really hung out with a boy, and we should think about scheduling a few doctors’ appointments –.”

— Francesca Zappia

85. “Worth as a person is not based on any tangible evidence. There’s no test for it, no scale. Everyone’s got their own idea of what it is.”

— Francesca Zappia

86. “The only thing missing was Miles. But he was probably circling somewhere, destroying villages and hoarding gold in his mountain lair.”

— Francesca Zappia

87. “If you know what you’re meant to do, if you know what you love, why not do that? Find a way to do it, find a way to make money doing it.”

— Francesca Zappia

88. “It makes no earthly sense how another person can do this. Not even with words, just touches. Just looks. He just looks at me and I feel simultaneously like myself and someone else, like I’m here and I’m not, like everything and nothing.”

— Francesca Zappia

89. “Eliza Mirk is barely a footnote in anyone’s life. Including mine.”

— Francesca Zappia

90. “Over time, the real remained in the photo while the hallucinations faded away. I discovered what sorts of things my mind liked to make up.”

— Francesca Zappia

91. “Good exercise,′ aka the actual worst phrase in the English language next to ‘wake up’ and ’all the eggs are gone.”

— Francesca Zappia

92. “Great. He really does like Monstrous Sea. I don’t know if that should be flattering or terrifying. With the sheer number of people that go to my school, I figured at least one of them would be a Monstrous Sea fan, but I also figured I’d never end up talking to them. Ever. Ever in my life. Why now? I only had to survive another seven months without something like this happening. Why now, O cruel universe?”

— Francesca Zappia

93. “What you loved as a child, you will love forever.”

— Francesca Zappia

94. “You are never as great or as pitiful as you think you are.”

— Francesca Zappia

95. “This year, though, Aunt Carol has the flu and the rest of the family is going to Florida, because I guess going to Florida for Thanksgiving is a thing people do. I don’t have to field questions from the rest of the family, a miracle tarnished only by the fact that my parents have decided that in exchange, this will be the most Mirk Thanksgiving that ever Mirked.”

— Francesca Zappia

96. “I bet college doesn’t have parking issues like this.”

— Francesca Zappia

97. “There’s more to life than stories, Eliza.”

— Francesca Zappia

98. “It’s Christmas?”

— Francesca Zappia

99. “Everything will work better when I’m gone, anyway; I won’t be around to mess up family togetherness time, or bother Max and Emmy with my problems, or remind Wallace of everything he could have had. I’m so tired. I’m tired of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can’t move the rest of my body. Tired of constant vigilance. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking the easy way out.”

— Francesca Zappia

100. “My body gets excited without my permission, and it’s not okay. It’s out of control. I don’t like out of control, but I like Wallace.”

— Francesca Zappia