Top 500 Tahereh Mafi Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “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

202. “I want to put a bullet through Adam Kent’s spine.”

— Tahereh Mafi

203. “You are not normal. You never have been, and you never will be. Embrace who you are.”

— Tahereh Mafi

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

— Tahereh Mafi

205. “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

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

— Tahereh Mafi

207. “Arrogance is false confidence. It is born from insecurity. Haider pretends to be unafraid. He pretends to be crueler than he is. He lies easily. Than makes him unpredictable and, in som ways, a more dangerous opponent. But the majority of the time his actions are inspired by fear. And that makes him weak.”

— Tahereh Mafi

208. “I cannot let the broken girl inside of me inhale all that I’ve become. I cannot revert back to another version of myself. I will not shatter, not again, in the wake of an emotional earthquake.”

— Tahereh Mafi

209. “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

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

— Tahereh Mafi

211. “Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never, ever sleeps.”

— Tahereh Mafi

212. “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

213. “I felt like crying. I felt like crying and screaming all at the same time, but i didn’t want to give in to feeling. I just wanted to push through this. I wanted to survive it with out losing my head.”

— Tahereh Mafi

214. “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

215. “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

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

— Tahereh Mafi

217. “I’m too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now.”

— Tahereh Mafi

218. “My parents loved us but I wasn’t always sure they liked us.”

— Tahereh Mafi

219. “In just two days, one girl has managed to cripple me.”

— Tahereh Mafi

220. “I’m really paying attention to my surroundings. All of a sudden my senses feel sharper, clearer; my entire being feels like it’s humming with a renewed kind of energy. I am electric.”

— Tahereh Mafi

221. “It’s not insane to imagine that sometimes even horrible people are searching for a way out of their own darkness.”

— Tahereh Mafi

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

— Tahereh Mafi

223. “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

224. “I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation. 6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.”

— Tahereh Mafi

225. “I’m wearing dead cotton on my limbs and a blush of roses on my face. His eyes scan the silhouette of my structure and the slow motion makes my heart race. I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage.”

— Tahereh Mafi

226. “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

227. “His smile is laced with dynamite.”

— Tahereh Mafi

228. “Come back to me, love. Come back.” I’m still struggling to breathe, desperately searching his eyes for answers. Explanations. “Where?” “Here,” he whispers, pressing my hands to his heart. “Home.”

— Tahereh Mafi

229. “Every vertebra, every knuckle, both kneecaps, both hips. I am a pile of bones on the floor and no one knows it but me. I am a broken skeleton with a beating heart.”

— Tahereh Mafi

230. “It didn’t matter how unaccented my English was. It didn’t matter that I told people, over and over again, that I was born here, in America, that English was my first language, that my cousins in Iran made fun of me for speaking mediocre Farsi with an American accent – it didn’t matter. Everyone assumed I was fresh off the boat from a foreign land.”

— Tahereh Mafi

231. “The world tried to crush you,′ I say, gently now, “and you refused to be shattered. You’ve recovered from every set back a stronger person, rising from the ashes only to astonish everyone around you. And you will continue to surprise and confuse those who underestimate you.”

— Tahereh Mafi

232. “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

233. “Winston hits a switch. The lights go out. There’s a rustle of blankets. “If I hear any of you talk,” Winston says, “I will personally send Brendan over to kick you in the face.” “I am not going to kick anyone in the face.” “Kick yourself in the face, Brendan.” “I don’t even know why we’re friends.”

— Tahereh Mafi

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

— Tahereh Mafi

235. “I lived in a really dark place. I wasn’t safe in my own mind. I woke up every morning hoping to die and then spent the rest of the day wondering if maybe I was already dead because I couldn’t even tell the difference.”

— Tahereh Mafi

236. “You’re my best friend, Kenji. You know that, right?” “Yeah, kid.” He grins at me. “I do. And I can’t believe I got stuck with your skinny ass.”

— Tahereh Mafi

237. “She saved my life, that’s for sure. Reached out a hand in the darkness. Pulled me out.”

— Tahereh Mafi

238. “I never even tried. Because I let the world teach me to hate myself. I was a coward who needed someone else to tell me I was worth something before I took any steps to save myself.”

— Tahereh Mafi

239. “Hell, he says, “I’ve finally found hell.”

— Tahereh Mafi

240. “I dressed the way I did not because I was trying to be a nun, but because it felt good – and because it made me feel less vulnerable in general, like I wore a kind of armor every day. It was a personal preference.”

— Tahereh Mafi

241. “We are hours and minutes reaching for the same second, holding hands as we spin forward into new days and the promise of something better.”

— Tahereh Mafi

242. “Maybe we both fell in love with the illusion of something more.”

— Tahereh Mafi

243. “Your eyes are so deep. So calm. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

— Tahereh Mafi

244. “His arms are tatted up, half sleeves to his elbows. His eyebrow is missing a ring they must’ve confiscated. Dark blue eyes dark brown hair sharp jawline strong lean frame. Gorgeous Dangerous. Terrifying. Horrible.”

— Tahereh Mafi

245. “My body is cracking from the pain I have swallowed so Many times, heaving with sobs I can no longer suppress, my dignity dissolving in my tears, the agony of these past few days ripping my skin to shreds.”

— Tahereh Mafi

246. “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

247. “We’re too different now. We want different things. And this?” I say nodding at our hands. “All this managed to prove is that you are extremely good at turning me off.”

— Tahereh Mafi

248. “Only an idiot would rely on the energy of a bean or a leaf to stay awake throughout the day.”

— Tahereh Mafi

249. “I want so many things,” he whispers. “I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time.” His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says “I want this up.” He tugs on the waist of my pants and says “I want these down.” He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, “I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it’s racing because of me, because you want me. Because you never,” he says, he breathes, “never want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it.”

— Tahereh Mafi

250. “He’s a hot bath, a short breath, five days of summer pressed into five fingers writing stories on my body.”

— Tahereh Mafi