The collection / 74 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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02Undated

The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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03Undated

People rarely bring flowers to a suicide.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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04Undated

What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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05Undated

You shouldn't spend all your time worrying about the love that leaves, because then you might overlook the love that was always there.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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06Undated

The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count. Everyone's so busy waiting in the Waiting Place. If we stopped to remember that there's such a thing as a Purina Tower and a view like this, we'd all be happier.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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07Undated

I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don't want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundered different people most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn't worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs - here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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08Undated

The future is uncertain, but that can be a good thing.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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09Undated

But what if hope had a threshold? What if there was a limit to it? What if each of us was only given a certain amount and mine was used up?

Jennifer Niven / quote

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10Undated

Were you planning to jump off?"“Not on pizza day. Never on pizza day, which is one of the better days of the week.” I should mention that I am a brilliant deflector.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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11Undated

The world after a war is a good world, I told myself. A happy world. A secure world. In this world, I might do anything.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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12Undated

I’ve always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes

Jennifer Niven / quote

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13Undated

I run until time stops. Until my mind stops.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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14Undated

For a minute, I can feel it: the sense of peace as my mind goes quiet, like I'm already dead. I am weightless and free. Nothing and no one to fear, not even myself.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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15Undated

She waves her arms at the world. "It's all just time filler until we die.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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16Undated

Angry at him for leaving without a word, angry at myself for being so easy to leave and for not being enough to make him want to stick around.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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17Undated

I love the thrill of impending, weightless doom...

Jennifer Niven / quote

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18Undated

Who cares for Algebra?Who delights in solving math?I only want to live my lifeAlong the creative path.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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19Undated

Now, if you asked him what he was going to do with himself, he'd tell you he guessed he might do anything he set his mind to. But he'd say it in a far-off way, as if he didn't really mean it or care much at all.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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20Undated

Since I stopped writing, I read more than ever. Other people's words, not my own--my words are gone.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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21Undated

It's my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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22Undated

I’m sorry about Finch. He was a good, screwed up kid who should have had more help.” “I feel responsible.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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23Undated

I think about Finch and Sir Patrick Moore and black holes and blue holes and bottomless bodies of water and exploding stars and event horizons, and a place so dark that light can't get out once it's in.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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24Undated

In those moments, none of it matters. It’s like that stuff is happening to someone else because all you feel is dark inside, and that darkness just kind of takes over. You don’t even really think about what might happen to the people you leave behind, because all you can think about is yourself.

Jennifer Niven / quote

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