Top 500 Nicola Yoon Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Words shouldn’t be allowed to change meanings. Who decides that the meaning has changed, and when? Is there an in-between time when word means both things. Or a time when the word doesn’t mean anything at all?”

— Nicola Yoon

52. “He says they’re not his type, but I don’t really get the concept of having a type. My type is girls. All of them. Why would I limit my dating pool?”

— Nicola Yoon

53. “These days when Patricia looks at her daughter, she doesn’t see as much of herself reflected back as before, and it hurts. But of course, all teenagers do this. All teenagers separate from their parents. To grow up is to grow apart.”

— Nicola Yoon

54. “Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything.”

— Nicola Yoon

55. “Dreaming is a luxury and not everyone has it.”

— Nicola Yoon

56. “Everyone’s a snowflake, right? We’re all unique and complicated. We can never know the human heart, and all that.”

— Nicola Yoon

57. “Sometimes your world shakes so hard, it’s difficult to imagine that everyone else isn’t feeling it too.”

— Nicola Yoon

58. “Maybe it’s better to end things this way. Better to have a tragic and sudden end than to have a long, drawn-out one where we realize that we’re just too different, and that love alone is not enough to bind us. I think all these things. I believe none of them.”

— Nicola Yoon

59. “The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it’s a long way down.”

— Nicola Yoon

60. “Doesn’t that book always make you cry?” “One day it won’t,” I say. “I want to be sure to be reading it on that day.”

— Nicola Yoon

61. “It’s better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don’t happen for a reason. They just happen.”

— Nicola Yoon

62. “I know there’s no such thing as meant-to-be, and yet here I am wondering if maybe I’ve been wrong.”

— Nicola Yoon

63. “America’s not really a melting pot. It’s more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies.”

— Nicola Yoon

64. “It’s hard to love someone who doesn’t love you back.”

— Nicola Yoon

65. “Love is everything. Everything.”

— Nicola Yoon

66. “The thing about falling is you don’t have any control on your way down.”

— Nicola Yoon

67. “I am made. I am unmade.”

— Nicola Yoon

68. “To be clear: I don’t believe in fate. But I’m desperate.”

— Nicola Yoon

69. “He was some exotic planet and I was his favorite satellite. But he’s no planet, just the final fading light of an already dead star. And I’m not a satellite. I’m space junk, hurtling as far as I can away from him.”

— Nicola Yoon

70. “Why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it’s our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.”

— Nicola Yoon

71. “Hearts don’t break. They just stop working. An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it.”

— Nicola Yoon

72. “He said that love and dark matter were the same – the only thing that kept the universe from flying apart.”

— Nicola Yoon

73. “How can this be the same day? How can all these people be going about their lives totally oblivious to what’s been happening to mine? Sometimes your world shakes so hard, it’s difficult to imagine that everyone else isn’t feeling it too.”

— Nicola Yoon

74. “Hearts don’t break. It’s just another thing poets say. Hearts are not made of glass or bone or any material that could splinter or fragment or shatter. They don’t crack into pieces. They don’t fall apart. Hearts don’t break. They just stop working.”

— Nicola Yoon

75. “A universe that can wink into existence can wink out again.”

— Nicola Yoon

76. “I keep picturing myself floating high above the earth. From the edge of space, I can see the whole world at once. My eyes don’t have to stop at a wall or at a door. I can see the beginning and the end of time. I can see infinity from here.”

— Nicola Yoon

77. “We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”

— Nicola Yoon

78. “We have big, beautiful brains. We invent things that fly. Fly. We write poetry. You probably hate poetry, but it’s hard to argue with ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ in terms of sheer beauty. We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”

— Nicola Yoon

79. “Even though I hate poetry, a poem I read for English class pops into my head. “Hope” is the thing with feathers. I understand concretely what that means now. Something inside my chest wants to fly out, wants to sing and laugh and dance with relief. I.”

— Nicola Yoon

80. “Doomed love is a part of life.”

— Nicola Yoon

81. “If the person who’s meant to love you forever can suddenly stop, then what is there to believe in?”

— Nicola Yoon

82. “It’s not that Natasha wants to let Daniel go; it’s that she has to let go. It isn’t possible for her to live in two worlds simultaneously, heart in one place, body in another. She lets go of Daniel to avoid being ripped apart.”

— Nicola Yoon

83. “I know all these things. I know them the way I know that Polaris, the North Star, is not actually the brightest star in the sky – it’s the fiftieth.”

— Nicola Yoon

84. “But I have a strange and happy feeling that I can’t quite describe. It’s like knowing all the words to a song but still finding them beautiful and surprising.”

— Nicola Yoon

85. “I’ve never really understood the phrase they have chemistry before now. After all, everything is chemistry. Everything is combination and reaction. The atoms in my body align themselves with the atoms in his.”

— Nicola Yoon

86. “La vida es un regalo no la desprecies.”

— Nicola Yoon

87. “Anything can happen at anytime. Safety is not guaranteed. There’s more to life than being alive.”

— Nicola Yoon

88. “No one wants to believe that life is random. My dad says he doesn’t know where my cynicism comes from, but I’m not a cynic. I am a realist. It’s better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don’t happen for a reason. They just happen.”

— Nicola Yoon

89. “People just want to believe. Otherwise they would have to admit that life is just a random series of good and bad things that happen until one day you die.”

— Nicola Yoon

90. “Why would you throw your future away for temporary things that you only want right now?”

— Nicola Yoon

91. “Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it.”

— Nicola Yoon

92. “Safety is not everything. There’s more to life than being alive.”

— Nicola Yoon

93. “He’s tired, but not the kind of tired that sleeping can fix.”

— Nicola Yoon

94. “I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don’t want to love him. I really don’t. As strategies go, it’s not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words.”

— Nicola Yoon

95. “Sincerity is sexy, and my cynical heart notices.”

— Nicola Yoon

96. “I am not lonely, Mom,” I snap. “I am alone. Those are different things.”

— Nicola Yoon

97. “Chaos theory says that even a small change in initial conditions can lead to wildly unpredictable results. A butterfly flaps her wings now and a hurricane forms in the future.”

— Nicola Yoon

98. “Natasha doesn’t say what she suspects. That meant to be doesn’t have to mean forever.”

— Nicola Yoon

99. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ in terms of sheer beauty. We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”

— Nicola Yoon

100. “From the edge of space I can see the whole world all at once. My eyes don’t have to stop at a wall or at a door. I can see the beginning and the end of time. I can see infinity from there. For the first time in a long time, I want more than I have.”

— Nicola Yoon