Top 140 Helen Hoang Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “She still shared a bed with him, but she kept her back to him and balanced on the very edge, as far away from him as possible. Sometimes, he worried she’d fall off. Other times, he hoped she’d fall off. So he’d have an excuse to tell her to come closer.”

— Helen Hoang

52. “I’m thinking I need to switch apps or narrow my search criteria when I come across Anna. Her picture is so sweet that I almost skip her on principle, but I keep looking because I can’t help myself.”

— Helen Hoang

53. “I don’t care what these hands do as long as they’re yours.”

— Helen Hoang

54. “How did you change your life when you were trapped like this? Her history didn’t define her. Her origins didn’t define her. At least, they shouldn’t. She could be more, if she had a chance.”

— Helen Hoang

55. “It’s like pricking yourself with a needle. Do it once, and you’re okay. You can ignore that it even happened. Prick yourself repeatedly without giving yourself time to heal, and soon you’re injured and bleeding.”

— Helen Hoang

56. “You’re wet already, Stella. You’re like a Lamborghini. Zero to sixty in two point seven seconds.”

— Helen Hoang

57. “That’s when I realize that I trust him. Over the past weeks, he’s proven time and again that he respects me, that he won’t hurt me. I can tell him things. Not because he doesn’t matter. But because he is kind.”

— Helen Hoang

58. “Sometimes he was alone out of habit. Sometimes it took effort to distract himself from the growing emptiness inside.”

— Helen Hoang

59. “I don’t like it when people have to act differently for me.”

— Helen Hoang

60. “This yearning for her, this craving, it’s sunk so deep into me that it’s part of me now. This is how Quan is now. He’s crazy about this one girl.”

— Helen Hoang

61. “So beautiful. And here. She’d come to find him again. No one ever looked for him. They all knew he wanted to be alone. Except it wasn’t always that way. Sometimes he was alone out of habit. Sometimes it took effort to distract himself from the growing emptiness inside.”

— Helen Hoang

62. “Anna’s pain is real. I can’t brush it aside just because I don’t understand it. I can’t place judgment on it. Pain is pain.”

— Helen Hoang

63. “For that’s the only place where true perfection exists – the blank page. Nothing I actually do can compete with the boundless potential of what I could do.”

— Helen Hoang

64. “Lips to lips, hearts melting together, no distance between them, not even an arm’s length.”

— Helen Hoang

65. “No one seemed to understand it wasn’t good-bye unless Andy said it back.”

— Helen Hoang

66. “Her lips curved like she was telling him a secret. About math things.”

— Helen Hoang

67. “She didn’t need to sleep with him. Her anger would keep her company.”

— Helen Hoang

68. “She was a bloodthirsty villainess.”

— Helen Hoang

69. “She ached so badly to be held it felt like a sickness had invaded her muscles and bones.”

— Helen Hoang

70. “Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean we need to throw it away.”

— Helen Hoang

71. “I see, and for the first time in my adult life, I don’t care that I’m making a scene. I haven’t hurt anyone. I shouldn’t be ashamed. I shouldn’t need to apologize. This is me.”

— Helen Hoang

72. “He was a puzzle she never would have been able to solve if he hadn’t shown her how. Those were the best kinds of puzzles, though, weren’t they? The ones no one else could figure out?”

— Helen Hoang

73. “All the bars of his cage were gone, but he was still sitting in his old place, afraid to move.”

— Helen Hoang

74. “It wasn’t loneliness if it could be eradicated with work or a Netflix marathon or a good book.”

— Helen Hoang

75. “I have to think really hard when I talk. Otherwise I blurt out rude things, and I alienate everyone.”

— Helen Hoang

76. “His sisters had posters of Henney plastered all over their bedroom walls, had even established a man-beauty scale of one to Henney.”

— Helen Hoang

77. “He matters more to me than the voices in my head.”

— Helen Hoang

78. “What would he think if she told him how difficult it was for her to do things like dancing and drinking? Going out was supposed to be fun. For her, it was work – hard work.”

— Helen Hoang

79. “Sometimes, he worried she’d fall off. Other times, he hoped she’d fall off. So he’d have an excuse to tell her to come closer.”

— Helen Hoang

80. “All I’ve got at this point is me. I have to be enough.”

— Helen Hoang

81. “For whatever reason, none of the women in this house cooked. He’d had to learn in order to survive.”

— Helen Hoang

82. “He’d been made to love her.”

— Helen Hoang

83. “When you loved something, you were good at it. If you weren’t good right away, you got good at it.”

— Helen Hoang

84. “She had a disorder, but it didn’t define her.”

— Helen Hoang

85. “He got out of bed and pulled on his jeans, fully aware of her audience’s appreciative gaze. He felt a little ridiculous about it, but maybe he did it slowly. Maybe he flexed his abs and biceps as he zipped his fly and buttoned his pants. Because really, putting on pants required a lot of muscle.”

— Helen Hoang

86. “When he finally found the strength to pull away, he settled her on her feet and went to toss the condom in the toilet.”

— Helen Hoang

87. “This was what happened when you kept secrets. People drew their own conclusions.”

— Helen Hoang

88. “Most alive when you might die.”

— Helen Hoang

89. “The harmless little lies that make people feel nice. They’re essential for getting along in society.”

— Helen Hoang

90. “He wondered what made a person a person. Was it something mystical like a soul? Something scientific like neural connections in the brain? Or something simpler like the ability to make someone miss you ten years after you’d died?”

— Helen Hoang

91. “I’m terrified that if I slip, if I fail, everyone will stop loving me, and where will I be then?”

— Helen Hoang

92. “He kissed her like she was his whole world, and if she weren’t already kneeling, she would have collapsed to the floor.”

— Helen Hoang

93. “He wanted to take his time and see if he could make her shine with a different kind of excitement.”

— Helen Hoang

94. “What do you think? Does it feel right to you?” he asks, and I can tell that’s what matters to him. He trusts me to know myself. I didn’t know how important that was to me until now. I get to be the expert on me.”

— Helen Hoang

95. “Last night had been a fiasco filled with panic attacks and fear sweat...”

— Helen Hoang

96. “More precisely, I’m an econometrician.” In Michael’s book, that put her solidly in the brainiac category, and an odd feeling ghosted up the back of his neck. Damned if he didn’t have a thing for smart girls.”

— Helen Hoang

97. “This was the beauty of apparel. A suit transformed you into a certain kind of person. A T-shirt, a different kind of person.”

— Helen Hoang

98. “Why couldn’t all men be just like her father? He thought she was beautiful and brilliant, and his smell didn’t make her sick.”

— Helen Hoang

99. “There’s no need for sorry. If you love her, we’ll learn to love her, too.”

— Helen Hoang

100. “Khai frowns, but he nods, accepting what I’ve said. He’s never pushy or nosy. He’s the best listener.”

— Helen Hoang