Top 500 Rainbow Rowell Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “He didn’t take her breath away. Maybe the opposite. But that was okay-that was really good, actually, to be near someone who filled your lungs with air.”

— Rainbow Rowell

102. “But you’re so helpless sometimes. It’s like watching a kitten with its head trapped in a Kleenex box.”

— Rainbow Rowell

103. “Go ahead and shoot me. This isn’t my favourite shirt.”

— Rainbow Rowell

104. “I’m not even mine anymore, I’m yours, and what if you decide that you don’t want me? How could you want me like I want you?”

— Rainbow Rowell

105. “Levi’s smile broke free and devoured his whole face. It started to devour her face, too. Cath had to look away.”

— Rainbow Rowell

106. “She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet. If she showed him how much she needed him, he’d run away.”

— Rainbow Rowell

107. “If you don’t want people to look at you, Park had thought at the time, don’t wear fishing lures in your hair. Her jewelry box must look like a junk drawer.”

— Rainbow Rowell

108. “I don’t think I’m any good at this. Boy–girl. Person–person. I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.”

— Rainbow Rowell

109. “Eleanor knew that she was fat, but she didn’t feel that fat. She could feel her bones and muscles just underneath all the chub, and they were big, too. Park’s mom could wear Eleanor’s rib cage like a roomy vest.”

— Rainbow Rowell

110. “You’re a kaleidoscope, you change every time I look away.”

— Rainbow Rowell

111. “You give away nice like it doesn’t cost you anything.”

— Rainbow Rowell

112. “Take your vitamins. Don’t drink vodka. Get used to empire waistlines.”

— Rainbow Rowell

113. “You don’t have to laugh out loud to mock someone.”

— Rainbow Rowell

114. “If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.”

— Rainbow Rowell

115. “The front seat is for people who’ve never been kidnapped by bloody numpties. Jesus Christ, Baz.”

— Rainbow Rowell

116. “I’d rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.”

— Rainbow Rowell

117. “Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire.”

— Rainbow Rowell

118. “He’s a book full of footnotes brought to life. He’s a jacket made of elbow patches.”

— Rainbow Rowell

119. “Money is a cruel thing. It’s the thing that stands between you and the things you want and the people you love.”

— Rainbow Rowell

120. “The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you.”

— Rainbow Rowell

121. “Because Park was the sun, and that was the only way Eleanor could think to explain it.”

— Rainbow Rowell

122. “But Park’s face was like art. And not weird, ugly art either. Park had the sort of face you painted because you didn’t want history to forget it.”

— Rainbow Rowell

123. “The whole sky was the color of her skin.”

— Rainbow Rowell

124. “I’m your friend. And friends don’t let friends live small lives.”

— Rainbow Rowell

125. “Are you still mine?” I’d ask him. “Do you still want this?” But I don’t. Because I don’t want to hear him say no.”

— Rainbow Rowell

126. “I won’t,′ I say. ‘I’ve never turned my back on you. And I’m not starting now.”

— Rainbow Rowell

127. “You have to pretend you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can’t carry on at all.”

— Rainbow Rowell

128. “What are those, leg sweaters?” “They’re leg warmers.” “You’re wearing at least four different kinds of sweater.” “This is a scarf.” “You look tarred and sweatered.”

— Rainbow Rowell

129. “Her mom had become some sort of a genius double agent since she hooked up with Richie. It was like she was keeping them all alive behind his back.”

— Rainbow Rowell

130. “But he kept finding new pockets of shallow inside himself. He kept finding new ways to betray her.”

— Rainbow Rowell

131. “Eleanor had never thought about killing herself – ever – but she thought a lot about stopping. Just running until she couldn’t run anymore. Jumping from something so high that she’d never hit the bottom.”

— Rainbow Rowell

132. “She didn’t have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Ballon. She lifted her heels and pulled him forward until his face was so close, she could look at only one of his eyes at a time. “You’re magic,” she said.”

— Rainbow Rowell

133. “You look like a protagonist.”

— Rainbow Rowell

134. “You win when no one finds you, even if they’re not looking.”

— Rainbow Rowell

135. “Everytime, he breaks your heart. And everytime, he expects me to pick up the pieces.”

— Rainbow Rowell

136. “A landline is an anchor – busy signals, long distance bills, missed connections and all.”

— Rainbow Rowell

137. “He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.”

— Rainbow Rowell

138. “She had the kind of smile you see in toothpaste commercials, where you can see practically all of somebody’s teeth. She should smile like that all the time, Park thought; it made her face cross over from weird to beautiful. He wanted to make her smile like that constantly.”

— Rainbow Rowell

139. “You look so blindingly cute right now, I feel like I need to make a pinhole in a piece of paper just to look at you.”

— Rainbow Rowell

140. “You know that I’m falling in love with you, right?”

— Rainbow Rowell

141. “My road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions – or bad – it’s just my road.”

— Rainbow Rowell

142. “Seriously?” she said. “That was so lame.” “I know,” he said, turning to her. “Next time, I’ll just say, ‘Eleanor, follow me down this dark alley, I want to kiss you.’” She.”

— Rainbow Rowell

143. “He pulled away to say he’s sorry, and she shook her head no, because even though she really want him to be sorry, she wanted to kiss him more.”

— Rainbow Rowell

144. “That girl – all of them – hated Eleanor before they’d even laid eyes on her. Like they’d been hired to kill her in a past life.”

— Rainbow Rowell

145. “The worst thing about the internet, as far as Greg’s bosses were concerned, was that it was now impossible to distinguish a roomful of people working diligently from a roomful of people taking the What-Kind-of-Dog-Am-I? online personality quiz.”

— Rainbow Rowell

146. “I’d eat butter with a spoon if it were acceptable.”

— Rainbow Rowell

147. “The whole point of fanfiction is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories.”

— Rainbow Rowell

148. “So you haven’t read the books.” “I’m not really a book person.” “That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

— Rainbow Rowell

149. “As soon as he said it, she broke into a smile. And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside him. Something always did.”

— Rainbow Rowell

150. “That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.”

— Rainbow Rowell