Top 500 Tahereh Mafi Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “Everything I want to say and everything I’ve wished to say begins to take shape, falling to the floor and scrambling upright. Paragraphs and paragraphs begin building walls around me, blocking and justifying as they find ways to fit together, linking and weaving and leaving no room for escape. And every single space between every unspoken word clambers up and into my open mouth, down my throat and into my chest, filling me with so much emptiness I think I might just float away.”

— Tahereh Mafi

352. “He takes my hand. Intertwines our fingers. Offers me a smile that manages to kiss my heart.”

— Tahereh Mafi

353. “I need air. I need a new brain. I need to jump out a window and catch a ride with a dragon to a world far from here.”

— Tahereh Mafi

354. “The darkness is choking me.”

— Tahereh Mafi

355. “Everything seems to be catching up with me at once. My failures. My cowardice. My stupidity. Sometimes I’m just so tired of this life.”

— Tahereh Mafi

356. “We don’t have to do anything at all to die. We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us.”

— Tahereh Mafi

357. “You have disappointed me in so many ways,” he says, his voice deceptively soft. “Please don’t let this be another.”

— Tahereh Mafi

358. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I feel off, unbalanced. Aching for something. I’m losing sight of my purpose, my sense of direction. I always tell myself that I’m fighting every day for hope, for the salvation of humanity, but every time I survive only to return to yet more loss and devastation, something comes loose inside of me. It’s like the people and places I love are the nuts and bolts keeping me upright; without them, I’m just scrap metal.”

— Tahereh Mafi

359. “I’m so scared that if I move even an inch, my body will snap in half and everyone will see that my insides are made up of nothing but all the tears I’m swallowing back right now.”

— Tahereh Mafi

360. “No one is ever close enough. I suck in my breath and wait for him to walk away like everyone else in my life. I want to smash this concrete world into oblivion. I want to be bigger, better, stronger. I want to be angry angry angry.”

— Tahereh Mafi

361. “But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not.”

— Tahereh Mafi

362. “The darkness is like a black canvas punctured by a blunt knife, with beams of light peeking through.”

— Tahereh Mafi

363. “I feel so shy so suddenly. So blind, so unnecessarily bold.”

— Tahereh Mafi

364. “Friendship is not a thing I have ever experienced. Not as a child, and not as I am now.”

— Tahereh Mafi

365. “These are my soldiers. Standing single-file line in their assembly uniforms. Black shirts, black pants, black boots. No guns. Left fist pressed against their hearts.”

— Tahereh Mafi

366. “That’s how I knew, for example, that Private Seamus Fletcher, 45B-76423, was beating his wife and children every night.”

— Tahereh Mafi

367. “Men are always so baffled by women’s clothing. So many opinions about a body that does not belong to them. Cover up, don’t cover up – no one can seem to decide.”

— Tahereh Mafi

368. “We were killing ourselves by trying to stay alive.”

— Tahereh Mafi

369. “His lips are spelling secrets and my ears are spilling ink, staining my skin with his stories.”

— Tahereh Mafi

370. “My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together.”

— Tahereh Mafi

371. “Kill because they’re bad, and we’re good. Kill because we tell you to. Because some people are so stupid that they actually think there are thick neon lines separating good and evil.”

— Tahereh Mafi

372. “Juliette,” I whisper. “My name is Juliette.”

— Tahereh Mafi

373. “I’m beginning to think of hope as a dangerous, terrifying thing.”

— Tahereh Mafi

374. “I study every quivering branch, every imposing soldier, every window I can count. My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything to store away in my mind.”

— Tahereh Mafi

375. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my life, but I never thought I’d have the pleasure of seeing Kishimoto shut his mouth for longer than five minutes.”

— Tahereh Mafi

376. “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. Everyday it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of life. The Moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

— Tahereh Mafi

377. “At least I’m honest about being a liar.”

— Tahereh Mafi

378. “I want a pocketful of punctuation marks to end the thoughts he’s forced into my head.”

— Tahereh Mafi

379. “Juliette.” His voice hugs the letters in my name so softly I die 5 times in that second.”

— Tahereh Mafi

380. “Alice jumped from flagstone to flagstone, her face caught in the rainlight glow, her hand grasping for a touch of gold. The towns excitement was contagious, and the air was so thick with promise Alice could almost bite into it.”

— Tahereh Mafi

381. “Sometimes I wonder if the planets are still up there, still aligned, still managing to get along after all this time. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.”

— Tahereh Mafi

382. “I forget, sometimes, that there are people out there who still manage to smile everyday, despite everything.”

— Tahereh Mafi

383. “He destroyed her dress the night before our wedding. Like a monster. I’m going to murder him.”

— Tahereh Mafi

384. “This isn’t about Adam or Warner,” I tell him, “This is about me and what I want. This is about me finally understanding where I want to be in ten years. Because I’m going to be alive, Kenji. I will be alive in ten years, and I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be strong. And I don’t need anyone to tell me that anymore. I am enough, and I always will be.”

— Tahereh Mafi

385. “I feel as though my history is being rewritten, infinite paragraphs scratched out and hastily revised. Old and new images – memories – layer atop each other until the ink runs, rupturing the scenes into something new, something incomprehensible.”

— Tahereh Mafi

386. “Realization is ice-cold water and it’s dripping down my back.”

— Tahereh Mafi

387. “In my very limited experience I’ve already found that people seeking power are not to be trusted.”

— Tahereh Mafi

388. “I realize I’m paying attention to nothing but the dandelions blowing wishes in my lungs.”

— Tahereh Mafi

389. “Oh, life had been a lonely one, but she knew how to pass the time.”

— Tahereh Mafi

390. “And some days I wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive.”

— Tahereh Mafi

391. “And every moment in the world drops dead just then, because they woke up and realized they’d never be as important as this one.”

— Tahereh Mafi

392. “Be careful with that ,” I said, nodding at the paper, “because if you text me too much, you’ll have to marry me. It’s the rules in my religion.”

— Tahereh Mafi

393. “How can I hate his anger,” he says, “when I know so well where it comes from?”

— Tahereh Mafi

394. “I follow his eyes to the pane of glass separating us from reality and I wait for his lips to part; I wait to listen to him speak. And then I try to pay attention as his words bounce around in the haze of my head, fogging my senses, misting my eyes, clouding my concentration.”

— Tahereh Mafi

395. “You’re a total catch.” “I know, right? I keep trying to tell people.”

— Tahereh Mafi

396. “He still has the most unusually blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Dark and deep and drenched in passion. I always wondered what it’d be like to see the world through such a beautiful lens. I wondered if your eye color meant you saw the world differently.”

— Tahereh Mafi

397. “This is the antonym of excellent.”

— Tahereh Mafi

398. “He raises his eyebrows. “At least I’m honest about being a liar.”

— Tahereh Mafi

399. “It’s like I’ve been stuffed full of twigs and all I have to do is bend and my body will break. All the guilt, the anger, the frustration, the pent-up aggression inside of me has found an outlet and now it can’t be controlled.”

— Tahereh Mafi

400. “It’s strange. How hollow i feel. Like there might be echoes inside of me. Like I’m one of those chocolate rabbits they used to sell around Easter, the ones that were nothing more than a sweet shell encapsulating a world of nothing. I’m like that. I encapsulate a world of nothing.”

— Tahereh Mafi