Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
“Yeah, my mom says that love is like music. One day you just – hear it.” “Whoa. First of all, I never said I loved Patrick. But I think I know what she means. I don’t think she means actual music, Bridge. She means that you know it when you feel it. Like music – you know it when you heart it.” “Okay, so love is also like a hamburger? You know it when you taste it?” Em laughed. “A hamburger is more deliberate. You have to make it, or ask for it. … Music just kind of breaks over you.”
Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you’ve heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn’t win. In some places, there is something ultimately good about endings. In Neverland, that is not the case.
'Tiger Lily' by Jodi Lynn Anderson
‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’
'Quintana of Charyn' by Melina Marchetta
Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.
'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky
Am I sounding creepy? Love is sort of creepy. When you fall in love, you presuppose all sorts of things about the person. You superimpose all kinds of ideals and fantasies on them. You create all manner of unrealistic, untenable, unsatisfiable criteria for that person, automatically guaranteeing their failure and your heartbreak. And what do we call it? Romance. Now, that’s creepy.
'Creepy and Maud' by Dianne Touchell
It's a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that's kept right next to my soul and Justine's spirit and Siobhan's hope and Tara's passions. Because if I'm going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I'm going to need everything I've got to fight this disease that could be sleeping inside of me.
'Saving Francesca' by Melina Marchetta
Everything in the world's got a voice; most people don't hear hard enough is all. Sunrise sounds like slow chords dripping from my guitar this morning. Sad chords, in B-flat.
'Chasing Charlie Duskin' by Cath Crowley
Conor blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re going to tell me stories?” Indeed, the monster said. “Well—“ Conor looked around in disbelief. “How is that a nightmare?” Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.
'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness
grief is a house where the chairs have forgotten how to hold us the mirrors how to reflect us the walls how to contain us grief is a house that disappears each time someone knocks at the door or rings the bell a house that blows into the air at the slightest gust that buries itself deep in the ground while everyone is sleeping grief is a house where no on can protect you where the younger sister will grow older than the older one where the doors no longer let you in or out
'The Sky Is Everywhere' by Jandy Nelson
I wish we could go back in time and climb trees together again. I love you, Vera. I always will.
'Please Ignore Vera Dietz' by A.S. King
I fall in love with these kids over and over again and my heart aches for their tragedies and marvels at their friendship.
'On the Jellicoe Road' by Melina Marchetta
All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is that you're happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.
'Ask The Passengers' by A.S. King
I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.
'Raw Blue' by Kirsty Eagar
I guess love's kind of like a marshmallow in a microwave on high. After it explodes it's still a marshmallow. But, you know, now it's a complicated marshmallow.
'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley
I howl. I howl at the roof like a hotted-up bomb doing donuts, full of screeches. I howl like an air-raid siren, my arms stretched out wide. Howls are like songs. They can’t be summoned; they just happen. They come from a place that I barely understand. And then something else climbs to the surface, something black and jagged, something from the deep. Imagine all your worst feelings surfacing. Imagine coughing up razor blades. Imagine not being able to stop the pain from coming out, and not knowing when it’s going to end.
'This is Shyness' by Leanne Hall
But I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They’d be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end. Then everybody could end their life on their momma or daddy’s stomach in a warm room, waiting for the soft morning light.
'The First Part Last' by Angela Johnson
“Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?”
'Finnikin of the Rock' Lumatere Chronicles #1 by Melina Marchetta
"Every time he looked at me I felt like I'd touched my tongue to the tip of a battery. In art class I'd watch him lean back and listen and I was nothing but zing and tingle. After a while, the tingle turned to electricity, and when he asked me out my whole body amped to a level where technically I should have been dead. I had nothing in common with a sheddy like him, but a girl doesn't think straight when she's that close to electrocution."
'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley
"I’m scared I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a state of yearning, regardless of where I am."
'The Piper's Son' by Melina Marchetta