Tahereh Mafi Quotes
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151. “I’m nineteen years old,” he clarifies. “I’m a fairly impressive specimen for my age, I know.”

— Tahereh Mafi

152. “A handful of letters doesn’t always make a word, love.”

— Tahereh Mafi

153. “If you hide your heart, he will never be able to take it from you.”

— Tahereh Mafi

154. “It’s like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what’s the point of screaming if you’ll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in her. No one will ever hear me again.”

— Tahereh Mafi

155. “Just because I’m going to hell doesn’t mean you’ll ever deserve her.”

— Tahereh Mafi

156. “Hanging out with you has made me weird, J. All I do is sit around thinking about my feelings these days. Thanks for that.”

— Tahereh Mafi

157. “I understood too well what it was like to feel like you were defined by one superficial thing- to feel like you would never excape the box people had put you in.”

— Tahereh Mafi

158. “His eyes are the perfect shade of cobalt, blue like a blossoming bruise, clear and deep and decided.”

— Tahereh Mafi

159. “Ocean had given me hope. He’d made me believe in people again. His sincerity had rubbed me raw, had peeled back the stubborn layers of anger I’d lived in for so long. Ocean made me want to give the world a second chance.”

— Tahereh Mafi

160. “I looked out at the world around me and no longer saw nuance. I saw nothing but the potential for pain and the subsequent need to protect myself, constantly.”

— Tahereh Mafi

161. “The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us. The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do.”

— Tahereh Mafi

162. “Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.”

— Tahereh Mafi

163. “My eyes open to 2 eyes 2 lips 2 ears 2 eyebrows. I stifle my scream my urgency to run the crippling horror gripping my limbs. “You’re a b-b-b-b – ”“And you’re a girl.”

— Tahereh Mafi

164. “I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he’s given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.”

— Tahereh Mafi

165. “Kenji is a walking paradox of Unflinchingly Serious Person and 12-Year-Old Boy Going Through Puberty all rolled into one.”

— Tahereh Mafi

166. “Sometimes a book isn’t a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Sometimes it’s the only story you knew how to tell.”

— Tahereh Mafi

167. “My eyes break open. Two shattered windows filling my mouth with glass.”

— Tahereh Mafi

168. “Juliette.” I close my eyes. He says, “I don’t want you to call me Warner anymore.” I open my eyes. “I want you to know me,” he says, breathless, his fingers pushing a stray strand of hair away from my face. “I don’t want to be Warner with you,” he says. “I want it to be different now. I want you to call me Aaron.”

— Tahereh Mafi

169. “And even when you’re ready to let go. When you’re ready to break free. When you’re ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can’t find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you’re not enough never enough never ever enough. Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes.”

— Tahereh Mafi

170. “Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch.”

— Tahereh Mafi

171. “My body is a carnivorous flower, a poisonous houseplant, a loaded gun with a million triggers and he’s more than ready to fire.”

— Tahereh Mafi

172. “The world tried to crush you,” I say, gently now, “and you refused to be shattered.”

— Tahereh Mafi

173. “He reminds me of someone I used to know. One sharp breath and I’m shocked back to reality. No more daydreams. “Why are you here?” I ask the cracks in the concrete wall. 14 cracks in 4 walls a thousand shades of gray.”

— Tahereh Mafi

174. “The pain became a drumbeat; a rhythm I could write a song to. It was always there, stark and steady, rarely abating. I learned to drown out the sound during the day, but at night it screamed through the hole in my chest.”

— Tahereh Mafi

175. “Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I’m not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch, to be touched, to feel, that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me.”

— Tahereh Mafi

176. “Death would be a welcome release from these earthly joys I’ve known.”

— Tahereh Mafi

177. “I’m lonely but I’m not alone. My body works, my brain works, I’m alive. It’s a good life. I have to make a conscious effort to remember that. To choose to be happy every day. If I didn’t, I think my own pain would’ve killed me a long time ago.”

— Tahereh Mafi

178. “My eyes are filling fast with tears and I blink and blink. Our eyes blur the truth when we can’t bear to see it.”

— Tahereh Mafi

179. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say. “And I don’t think you’re a psychopath. I don’t think you’re a heartless murderer. I don’t care what anyone else says about you. I think you’re a good person.”

— Tahereh Mafi

180. “I’m having a panic attack, you inconsiderate ass.”

— Tahereh Mafi

181. “Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence.”

— Tahereh Mafi

182. “It is only in the desperate seconds before death that we realize the windows against which we broke our bodies were only mirrors, all along.”

— Tahereh Mafi

183. “I only know now that the scientists are wrong. The world is flat. I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I’ve been trying to hold on for 17 years. I’ve been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.”

— Tahereh Mafi

184. “Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps, is what I don’t tell him.”

— Tahereh Mafi

185. “You’re my bird,” I tell him. “You’re my bird and you’re going to help me fly away.”

— Tahereh Mafi

186. “My past still clings to me, skeleton hands holding me back even as I push forward into the light.”

— Tahereh Mafi

187. “Twice. Once for Adam. Once for Warner.”

— Tahereh Mafi

188. “But how?” she says, her voice breaking on the word. “How do I get them out of my head?” “Set them on fire.” Her eyes go wide. “In your mind,” I say, attempting a smile. “Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.” I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. “Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all burn in hell.”

— Tahereh Mafi

189. “I peek up at his features, at the crooked grin i want to savor, at the color in his eyes i’d use to paint a million pictures.”

— Tahereh Mafi

190. “He kept trying to be nice to me and, in an unexpected turn of events, his kindness left me angry and confused. I pushed him away because i was afraid to be even remotely close to someone who, i was certain, would one day hurt me. I trusted no one anymore. I was so raw from repeated exposure to cruelty that now even the most minor abrasions left a mark.”

— Tahereh Mafi

191. “Happiness does not happen. Happiness must be uncovered, separated from the skin of pain. It must be claimed. Kept close. Protected.”

— Tahereh Mafi

192. “You know, you have a really strange way of telling me you’re attracted to me.”

— Tahereh Mafi

193. “You’re going to go on to do incredible things. I’ve always known that. I think I just wanted to be a part of it.”

— Tahereh Mafi

194. “The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it’s time to wake up wake up “Wake up,” he whispers.”

— Tahereh Mafi

195. “It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.”

— Tahereh Mafi

196. “His eyes are two buckets of rainwater: deep, fresh, clear. Hurt.”

— Tahereh Mafi

197. “It’s hot rain and humid days and broken thermostats. It’s screaming and raging steam engines and wanting to take your clothes off just to feel a breeze. It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.”

— Tahereh Mafi

198. “My father couldn’t warm my frozen hands.”

— Tahereh Mafi

199. “I am not dramatic, okay? My presence just commands a certain kind of attention-.”

— Tahereh Mafi

200. “I have a great fear of drowning in the ocean of my own silence.”

— Tahereh Mafi