Top 70 Paula Stokes Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “To me, Mother Nature isn’t nearly as scary as human nature.”

— Paula Stokes

2. “When you care about someone, you can’t just turn that off because you learn they betrayed you.”

— Paula Stokes

3. “Time doesn’t heal anything. It’s like drinking. The best it can do is help you forget, if you’re lucky.”

— Paula Stokes

4. “Accidentally hurting yourself is way better than hurting other people.”

— Paula Stokes

5. “You have more power than you think. Be careful what you do with it.”

— Paula Stokes

6. “Monsters don’t get happy endings.”

— Paula Stokes

7. “It sucks that it takes losing something important to make some people realize they need to change, but unfortunately that’s how it is.”

— Paula Stokes

8. “What so many people don’t understand is that the reason some of us do things that seem impossibly hard to others is because we don’t have a choice.”

— Paula Stokes

9. “But the truth is, pretending something didn’t happen doesn’t make it less real. it just makes ‘me’ less real.”

— Paula Stokes

10. “The truth doesn’t get you very far on the streets, or in a group home, or even in high school. That’s probably why the idea of Liars, Inc. appealed to me. Everybody lies. You might as well get paid for it.”

— Paula Stokes

11. “Sometimes unintentionally cruel is the worst cruel of all.”

— Paula Stokes

12. “There’s nothing abnormal about loneliness.”

— Paula Stokes

13. “But my history isn’t something I should hide from or be ashamed of. Everyone has dealt with things in their past. It’s not our struggles that make us who we are, it’s how we respond to them.”

— Paula Stokes

14. “I go back for seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths, when it’s good. Just not if it means some guy gets to put a leash on me.”

— Paula Stokes

15. “Some people think they can just decree that everything will be fine. The world doesn’t work like that. I’m not sure the world gives a crap about anyone’s promises, well-meaning or otherwise. Sometimes the Universe just takes what it wants.”

— Paula Stokes

16. “Never depend completely on other people, but take help when you need it, and give help when you can.”

— Paula Stokes

17. “People are always clinging to what they want to hear, discarding the evidence that doesn’t fit with their beliefs, giving greater weight to evidence that does.”

— Paula Stokes

18. “Standing up for yourself is about more than flinging barbed-wire insults around. Its about picking your battles, knowing when to fight, knowing exactly what and who is worth fighting for.”

— Paula Stokes

19. “Seoul is a city of layers and Jesse peels them back with his penetrating gaze, taking in the glitzy Western bars, the alleys sloping upward into cramped housing developments, the doorways leading to dark hallways that lead to offices and noodle shops the casual observer would never even know existed.”

— Paula Stokes

20. “If you’ve never been close to death, life probably seems pretty solid. The truth is, it can be destroyed in an instant, like a photograph. One moment your world is slick and shiny. But then the Universe crumples everything into a ball. And even if you don’t get crushed, if you fight to straighten things out, your life will never be the same again.”

— Paula Stokes

21. “Faith seems to be something people develop when their lives are going good. It’s always been in short supply for me.”

— Paula Stokes

22. “I am not warm. That is why my sister chose the name Winter for me.”

— Paula Stokes

23. “To us, reality is just raw footage: Unclear. Desultory. Too shocking or not quite shocking enough. It’s ironic that making something more real involves making it less real, but Gideon always says people don’t want real. They want the idea of real, which involves production.”

— Paula Stokes

24. “Turning off the lights is like opening a doorway in my mind.”

— Paula Stokes

25. “We can’t define people by their worst actions.”

— Paula Stokes

26. “The world is full of holes and uneven seams, wrinkled places that you can’t make smooth, no matter how hard you try.”

— Paula Stokes

27. “There’s something comforting about his presence. Something that makes me feel hopeful, like everything I want is still possible.”

— Paula Stokes

28. “That’s one of the problems with nice guys. If They can’t stand up for themselves then they won’t be able to stand up for you either.”

— Paula Stokes

29. “There’s a thing that sometimes happens in your brain when you’re the only survivor of a horrific accident. Part of you is happy because you’re alive, but the rest of you is devastated. Then the sad part beats up the happy part until nothing is left, until all you feel is terrible sorrow for the people who didn’t make it. And guilt. Guilt because you wonder if the Universe made a mistake. Guilt because you know you’re not any better than those who died.”

— Paula Stokes

30. “How does the world even keep going with so much pain and tragedy everywhere?”

— Paula Stokes

31. “Jesse and I might as well be caught in a snow globe. Tonight is just a single perfect moment trapped in glass. Tomorrow our protective bubble will be shattered.”

— Paula Stokes

32. “Lainey is hot in a prom queen kind of way and we used to be friends back in grade school, but that was two lifetimes ago. Now she’s a varsity soccer player and card-carrying popular girl who hangs out with the kind of mean girls and douchebags who get killed first in horror movies.”

— Paula Stokes

33. “You can’t explain love with experiments and MRIs. I don’t care what your research says. Some things are bigger than science.”

— Paula Stokes

34. “Loneliness is just like everything else-if you endure it long enough, you get used to it.”

— Paula Stokes

35. “There are so many different ways for someone to say your name. I’m not sure I ever realized that before I met Jesse. Prior to him, it was just Rose calling out to me with love and affection or Gideon relaying his quiet approval or disapproval. Crisp, clear notes. When Jesse says my name, it’s a chord, a mash-up of several intense emotions all reflected in two syllables.”

— Paula Stokes

36. “No,” Gideon says. “No guns. The most dangerous weapon you have is your brain. Give someone a gun and they tend to quit using it.”

— Paula Stokes

37. “It’s not right that some people have so much and others have so little.”

— Paula Stokes

38. “I study her expression, trying to memorize what love looks like, just in case things don’t work out. Apparently, it looks vulnerable, like a dog that’s been hit by a car. Just lying there on the pavement, waiting for you to run into the street and scoop it up in your arms.”

— Paula Stokes

39. “How do you make me smile when it seems like there’s nothing in the whole world to smile about?”

— Paula Stokes

40. “I laugh as an unfamiliar feeling envelops me. I think it might be happiness.”

— Paula Stokes

41. “How can something feel so crucial in the moment and then seem completely trivial after the fact?”

— Paula Stokes

42. “Beyond the snowy trees, the endless high-rises of Seoul have faded to a blurry gray shadow, but their presence hasn’t dwindled. Even in the poor visibility, there’s no denying that the city feels like the walls of a fortress, a fortress that is both protecting us and trapping us.”

— Paula Stokes

43. “I’m not afraid of the dark or what hides within its shadows. To me, Mother Nature isn’t nearly as scary as human nature.”

— Paula Stokes

44. “Guilt is basically one of my superpowers. It’s been programmed into me from the moment I was old enough to know what it was.”

— Paula Stokes

45. “I think about the way Baz teased me earlier, how he wanted to know what it felt like to have someone who would do anything for me. Maybe it sounds comforting to know there is a person out there who would risk his life to protect you – a person who would back off when you asked and then come to you when you changed your mind. Especially when that person is as kind and decent as Jesse. The truth is, it’s terrifying. It’s just one more opportunity for me to be a monster.”

— Paula Stokes

46. “Enough with the apologies. I can’t just forgive seventeen years of hurt all at once. But you can do better, all right? From today onward, do better. Not just for me. For my mom too.”

— Paula Stokes

47. “Anyone who is struggling with something could find inspiration in the way you face your problems head on and totally kick their asses.”

— Paula Stokes

48. “The world needs more beautiful things.”

— Paula Stokes

49. “Where does seeking justice end and seeking vengeance begin?”

— Paula Stokes

50. “Love is the kind of thing you have to nurture and care for. You can’t just lock it up in some faraway place if you want it to last.”

— Paula Stokes