Top 60 Joelle Charbonneau Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “God bless America, where we turn everyone against each other to keep us safe.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

2. “Another bomb was ready to go off, and the bomber was one of them.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

3. “The earth is resilient, but it’s hard to imagine a time when this place will be anything but a terrible reminder of what we as a people can do.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

4. “Freedom was a myth.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

5. “You’re going to get up and face whatever comes. I’ll be proud of you no matter what today brings.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

6. “Worrying about the past won’t help. I can only deal with the present.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

7. “The Testing is no longer filled with excitement for the opportunity to help the Commonwealth rebuild. The Testing is now about staying alive.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

8. “History shows that it takes only a spark to start a fire that cannot be easily checked. The Seven Stages of War started with the outrage of one leader.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

9. “The best leaders make mistakes and then learn from them. The best leaders never make the same mistakes again. The only way you can learn is if you understand the mistakes that were made.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

10. “Maybe that’s the mark of a real leader. Admitting a mistake has been made and finding a way to stop it at all costs.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

11. “No one gets something for nothing, we all should know better.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

12. “Things don’t always work out the way we hope. You just have to pick yourself up and find a new direction to go in.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

13. “To get what you wanted in life, you must inspire trust – even if you intended to break it.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

14. “Forgetting that it happened doesn’t change anything. Nothing can change the past.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

15. “No matter how many warnings are posted, no one actually believes that online behavior can hurt their lives or the lives of others. Especially if there is a cloak of anonymity. Everyone feels shielded, safe, and invincible.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

16. “Take my time. Never second-guess myself. Almost always my first instinct will be the correct one.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

17. “Thinking something is true doesn’t make it so. Perception is almost as important as reality.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

18. “I will not stoop so low as to trick others in order to eliminate the competition. While I am horrified at the methods employed with The Testing, I seriously doubt the Testing officials who rate us at the end will approve of trickery either. What kind of leader would that type of person make?”

— Joelle Charbonneau

19. “I wish I could go back to who I was, but I’m different.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

20. “All leaders have to live with disappointment at some point or another. If I have to learn that lesson early, I won’t enjoy it, but I will do my best not to let you down.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

21. “Everyone has a price, Kaylee. You just have to be willing to push until you figure out what it is.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

22. “I’m not going to just break their rules this time. I’m going to shatter them.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

23. “The time to lead is now.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

24. “Depression isn’t like root beer. It’s not as if you either like it or you don’t.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

25. “Freedom was a myth. Carys’s brother Andreus didn’t think so. He said a person could feel free even when walls surrounded him.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

26. “Because sometimes the best leaders are the ones who have no interest in leading. Those are often the ones who are most interested in doing what is right, not what is popular.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

27. “Once you were a winner, you had to stay the winner they expected you to be.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

28. “Well, maybe that’s what the whole test is really about. Leaders are forced to kill all the time. Then they have to learn to live with the decisions they make. Just like I’m going to learn to live with mine.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

29. “A cage that cannot be seen is no less there than if the walls were made of steel.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

30. “At five feet, two inches, I am the shortest girl in my class.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

31. “Yes, lives were saved, but what about the lives taken? History says that progress often requires sacrifice, but what kind of progress can we claim when it is built on the lives of the citizens it is supposed to aid?”

— Joelle Charbonneau

32. “Boys and dating haven’t been on my priority list. And they certainly can’t be now.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

33. “Tell a girl you love her and she automatically gets bossy. Well, I guess I can’t complain since you’re asking me to take off my pants.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

34. “Because everyone wanted something, and when someone coveted a thing enough, rarely did they question the price.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

35. “Even where the soil was most corrupt, the willow found a way to survive.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

36. “Perhaps that’s the first rule I will learn as an adult – that you can’t always get what you want. Zeen.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

37. “Government isn’t always just, and it isn’t always fair. But it should be.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

38. “It’s been so long since I’ve been okay, I don’t know what it feels like anymore.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

39. “Was he scared? Hell, yeah. But sometimes the only way to change something was to break it first.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

40. “The orb shone bright, but darkness had come to Eden and Carys didn’t know is there was any light that could chase this kind of darkness away.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

41. “Most choose to pretend they’re ignorant of the facts because the system works. The idea of changing it scares them more than giving it their tacit approval.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

42. “Just make sure you put the books back where you found them when you’re done, or your fellow students will get testy.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

43. “Revitalizing the earth is an important job. One I admire. I might even be happy to consider it, if I didn’t kill every plant I touched.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

44. “No matter what she said or what she wore or how hard she tried. They had already decided she wasn’t good enough. And she was done trying to gain the approval of people who thought they could make themselves feel better by pushing her and then kicking her when she was down.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

45. “An explosion. Something that should exist only in movies and on the news. And here he was in the middle of it.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

46. “The larger the population, the less our leaders feel personally accountable to each citizen under their care.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

47. “Dad always said the best way to keep the mind healthy is to make sure the body is strong.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

48. “All the living want to do is care for the dead. And now they, too, are among the fallen.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

49. “I was having nightmares because I’d discovered monsters that were real. Disease and the prospect of death were far scarier than any boogeyman.”

— Joelle Charbonneau

50. “Hooray for the voice of reason.”

— Joelle Charbonneau