In one split second I saw everything I could be, everything I want to be. And all that I'm not. Jandy Nelson More Quotes by Jandy Nelson More Quotes From Jandy Nelson I didn't know love felt like this, like turning into brightness. Jandy Nelson brightness felt knows There were once two sisters who were not afriad of the dark because the dark was full of the other's voice across the room, because even when the night was thick and starless they walked home together from the river seeing who could last the longest without turning on her flashlight, not afraid because sometimes in the pitch of night they'd lie on their backs in the middle of the path and look up until the stars came back and when they did, they'd reach their arms up to touch them and did. Jandy Nelson sister stars lying Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy. Jandy Nelson and-love grief joy Each time someone dies, a library burns. Jandy Nelson library dies All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw. Her particular way of looking at Hamlet or daisies or thinking about love, all her private intricate thoughts, her inconsequential secret musings – they’re gone too. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground. Jandy Nelson expression secret thinking I always imagined music trapped inside my clarinet, not trapped inside of me. But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks? Jandy Nelson what-if break heart This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. Jandy Nelson reading stories thinking He doesn't have to say it, i feel it too; it's not subtle - like every bell for miles and miles is ringing at once, loud and clanging, hungry ones and tiny, happy, chiming ones, all of them sounding off in this moment. I put my hands around his neck, pull him to me, and then he's kissing me hard and so deep, and i am flying, sailing, soaring. Jandy Nelson kissing flying hands It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was. Jandy Nelson enchanted effort lost The guy's life drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists? Jandy Nelson drunk witty thinking When he plays all the flowers swap colors and years and decades and centuries of rain pour back into the sky Jandy Nelson color flower rain I gasp, because Isn't that just exactly what I've been doing too: writing poems and scattering them to the winds with the same hope as Gram that someone, someday, somewhere might understand who I am, who my sister was, and what happened to us. Jandy Nelson who-i-am writing wind The Color Of Extraordinary. Jandy Nelson extraordinary color There once was a girl who found herself dead. She peered over the ledge of heaven and saw that back on earth her sister missed her too much, was way too sad, so she crossed some paths that would not have crossed, took some moments in her hand shook them up and spilled them like dice over the living world. It worked. The boy with the guitar collided with her sister. "There you go, Len," she whispered. "The rest is up to you. Jandy Nelson guitar girl boys He murmers into my hair, "Forget what I said earlier, let's stick with this, I might not survive anything more." I laugh. Then he jumps up, finds my wrists, and pins them over my head. "Yeah, right. Totally joking, I want to do everything with you, whenever you're ready, I'm the one, promise?" He's above me, batting and grinning like a total hooplehead. "I promise," I say. "Good. Glad that's decided." He raises an eyebrow. "I'm going to deflower you, John Lennon. Jandy Nelson eyebrows hair laughing [Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon] I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym Jandy Nelson girl mom football Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it. Jandy Nelson philosophical heart beautiful Remember how it was when we kissed? Armfuls and armfuls of light thrown right at us. A rope dropping down from the sky. How can the word love and the word life even fit in the mouth? Jandy Nelson rope light sky The. World. Is. Not. A. Safe. Place. Jandy Nelson safe-places safe world The architecture of my sister's thinking, now phantom. I fall down stairs that are nothing but air. Jandy Nelson air fall thinking
