Top 250 Scott Westerfeld Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Once there was a girl named Riley, the story began. Her heart was a secret garden, its stone walls cracked and weathered. And it was hungry. p160.”

— Scott Westerfeld

202. “That girl in the painting looks so fierce, so strong. I want her to be the truth of me.”

— Scott Westerfeld

203. “She had changed the arc of her own story, merely by typing a couple of thousand words each day for thirty days.”

— Scott Westerfeld

204. “Mindy had explained that a lot of things had ghosts, not just people. Animals, machines, even things as vast as a paved-over forest or as humble as the smell of good cooking could leave traces of themselves behind. The world was haunted by the past.”

— Scott Westerfeld

205. “It helps to be with people who remember you, and who still think about you.”

— Scott Westerfeld

206. “Suddenly a pair of searchlights lanced out from the frigate. They swept across the dark expanse – bright knives slicing the night into pieces.”

— Scott Westerfeld

207. “Dare to ask, “Where is my novel too simple?””

— Scott Westerfeld

208. “Typographical laziness was slowly destroying our culture, according to Lexa and her pals. Inexactitude was death.”

— Scott Westerfeld

209. “Novelists are evil psychopomps, basically. We treat a few characters as real, but the rest of them are cannon fodder.”

— Scott Westerfeld

210. “I make it a policy never to appear surprised” – Dr Barlow.”

— Scott Westerfeld

211. “Blurbs don’t work anymore!” was another. “You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!” seemed at best debatable.”

— Scott Westerfeld

212. “How come you forget English when you swear?”

— Scott Westerfeld

213. “First love is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you’re doing.”

— Scott Westerfeld

214. “The opening chapter was the book’s unique selling point, the singular idea that had carried Darcy through last November, and Coleman had just come up with it off the top of his head.”

— Scott Westerfeld

215. “Makes perfect sense. In a problematic way. But life is problematic, so novels must be too.”

— Scott Westerfeld

216. “She would find her answers in the words she wrote, in the stories she told, not by asking for permission.”

— Scott Westerfeld

217. “As Melissa got closer, the taste of school began to foul her mouth.”

— Scott Westerfeld

218. “You look beautiful – David.”

— Scott Westerfeld

219. “It’s not always about writing more words or drinking more coffee. Sometimes getting to the end of a novel simply takes remembering that the world is more complicated than we know, and then sticking some of those complications into the story.”

— Scott Westerfeld

220. “At fist he didn’t say anything more, and we had a little staring contest there in the darkness. but I liked staring at him, and I won.”

— Scott Westerfeld

221. “We needed to become world-famous soon, while there was still that kind of world to be famous in...”

— Scott Westerfeld

222. “From now on, no one rewires my mind but me.”

— Scott Westerfeld

223. “What a waste, using her talents this way. Like a brain surgeon clubbing seals for a living.”

— Scott Westerfeld

224. “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. – Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and Moral, “Of Beauty.”

— Scott Westerfeld

225. “And I kind of love it that you want to know everything.”

— Scott Westerfeld

226. “Run and hide. We’re on our way.”

— Scott Westerfeld

227. “Alek coughed politely, “If I promise to avoid funny business, could you perhaps remove this knife from my throat?”

— Scott Westerfeld

228. “You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!” seemed.”

— Scott Westerfeld

229. “Fun fact: there are also 3,000 varieties of pears. That’s right. Even PEARS are more complicated than you thought!”

— Scott Westerfeld

230. “Nummy-time!“ – Cal.”

— Scott Westerfeld

231. “In a novel you always knew the moment when something Happened, when someone Changed. But real life was full of gradual, piecemeal, continuous transformation. It was full of accidents and undefineables, and things that just happened on their own. The only certainty was ‘It’s complicated,’ whether or not unicorns tolerated your touch.”

— Scott Westerfeld

232. “She imagines herself as the long-dead Descartes, staring into his fireplace and building a world in his own mind.”

— Scott Westerfeld

233. “Your book is smart and beautiful. I want to have its sequels.”

— Scott Westerfeld

234. “Being an author sucks, doesn’t it? It’s like telling a joke and nobody laughs for two years.”

— Scott Westerfeld

235. “And even though her journal was just random sentences, she did spin stories in my head. The sound of her voice made dreams happen.”

— Scott Westerfeld

236. “Looking for a thousand years is worth it, if in the end you find what you need.”

— Scott Westerfeld

237. “There’s always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away, all that’s left is some story in a history class.”

— Scott Westerfeld

238. “Yeah, you should have seen your face. Actually, I should have seen your face. Stupid sneak suits.”

— Scott Westerfeld

239. “Because that’s what people need after traumas, apparently – lots of long conversations about the effects of trauma.”

— Scott Westerfeld

240. “Maybe Flicker’s power made her think differently than most people. She saw the world from so many perspectives, and seeing was half of enlightenment.”

— Scott Westerfeld

241. “Maybe none of us know who we really are.”

— Scott Westerfeld

242. “Life was going to be one big party from now on, full of beautiful people. Like Tally Youngblood.”

— Scott Westerfeld

243. “When you get your author’s photo taken, be sure not to touch your face.” “Why would I do that?” “It’s a mystery, but quite common. You must have seen this one.” Oscar struck a brooding pose, his fist beneath his chin. “For the author whose brain is too heavy to stay up on its own.”

— Scott Westerfeld

244. “Pretty? Think again.” She smiled. “I’m Tally Youngblood. My mind is very ugly. And I’m taking your car.”

— Scott Westerfeld

245. “My name’s Tally Youngblood,” she said. “Sorry to disturb you, but this is a special circumstance.”

— Scott Westerfeld

246. “By now, Tally understood that nothing in the Smoke ever lost its value. Nothing was discarded or given away just because it was old or broken.”

— Scott Westerfeld

247. “More important, she had someone else now. However unfair it was that her memories of David had been erased, Tally had built a whole new set of memories, and she couldn’t just trade them in for the old ones. Zane and she had helped each other become bubbly, had been imprisoned by the cuffs together, and escaped the city together. She couldn’t abandon him now, just because he had been robbed of part of his mind.”

— Scott Westerfeld

248. “Doing what you’re supposed to do is always boring.”

— Scott Westerfeld

249. “The world’s beauty hurt like razors, and Tally knew she’d never have to cut herself again. She carried a knife inside herself now, one that was always cutting her.”

— Scott Westerfeld

250. “She squeezes my hand, and I feel that certainty I always had as a littlie. That I’m more than expendable. More than a body double.”

— Scott Westerfeld