Rainbow Rowell quotes
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“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving you whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2011). “Attachments”, p.144, Hachette UK
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“Every woman wants a man who'll fall in love with her soul as well as her body.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.149, St. Martin's Griffin
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“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you're still not better off without it.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“And sometimes you held somebody’s hand just to prove that you were still alive, and that another human being was there to testify to that fact.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.384, St. Martin's Griffin
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“In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't Google.)”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I couldn't love anyone more than I do you, it would kill me. And I couldn't love anyone less because it would always feel like less. Even if I loved some other girl, that's all I would ever think about, the difference between loving her and loving you.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“If you can't save your own life, is it even worth saving?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You’ve read the books?†“I’ve seen the movies.†Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.†“I’m not really a book person.†“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Months are different in college, especially freshman year. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months—they're like dog months.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Fangirl”, p.298, Pan Macmillan
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“I want someone whose heart is big enough to hold me.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2011). “Attachments”, p.206, Hachette UK
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“You act like there are two kinds of girls,' she said. 'The smart ones and the ones that boys like.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I always get lost in the library,' he said, 'no matter how many times I go. In fact, I think I get lost there more, the more that I go. Like it's getting to know me and revealing new passages.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I'd rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I want everyone to meet you. You're my favorite person of all time.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Eleanor & Park”, p.113, Macmillan
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“Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,†Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.648, St. Martin's Griffin
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“I love you more than I hate everything else.”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2014). “Landline: A Novel”, p.71, St. Martin's Press
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“I just had this feeling about you," she said. "Is that foolish?" "I hope not.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“high school guys only appear hot to high school girls. its something to do with the fluorescent lighting in the classrooms, i think. They're actually really skinny and spotty, and they have giant feet”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying, 'I don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“It was like their lives were overlapping lines, like they had their own gravity. Usually, that serendipity thing felt like the nicest thing the universe had ever done for her.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I'm the Cool One," she told herself. "Somebody give me some tequila because I'll totally drink it. And there's no way you're going to find me later having a panic attack in your parents' bathroom. Who wants to French-kiss?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“He wished that they could go through life like this. That he could physically put himself between Eleanor and the world.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I look like this because I'm alive," Reagan said. "Because I've had experiences. Do you understand?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“It felt good to be writing in her own room, in her own bed. To get lost in the World of Mages and stay lost. To not hear any voices in her head but Simon's and Baz's. Not even her own. This was why Cath wrote fic. For these hours when their world supplanted the real world.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I wonder…,†she said, “if there was such a thing as time machines, would anyone ever use them to go to the future?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“She didn't have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Ballon. She lifted her heels and pulled him forward until his face was so close, she could look at only one of his eyes at a time. "You're magic," she said.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Have you ever heard sculptors say that they don’t actually sculpt an object; they sculpt away everything that isn’t the object?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Cath wished she didn't use the word "just" so much. It was her passive-aggressive tell, like someone who twitched when they were lying.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Hey,' he said. It came out hard and frustrated. 'I told you to smile because you're pretty when you smile.' She walked to the bottom of the steps, then looked back at him. 'It'd be better if you thought I was pretty when I don't.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Ah...' Park said, pained. 'What?' 'Those are alphabetized.' 'It's okay. I know the alphabet.' 'Right.' He looked embarrassed. 'Sorry.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“She was tired of being the one who cried.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“There's only of him, she thought, and he's right here.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Cath ran her fingers along the cover, over the raised gold type. Then someone else ran right into her, pushing the book into Cath's chest. Pushing two books into her chest. Cath looked up just as Wren threw an arm around her. "They're both crying," Cath heard Reagan say. "I can't even watch." Cath freed an arm to wrap around her sister. "I can't believe it's really over," she whispered. Wren held her tight and shook her head. She really was crying, too. "Don't be so melodramatic, Cath," Wren laughed hoarsely. "It's never over... It's Simon.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Take off your glasses." "Why? I thought you liked my glassess." "I love your glasses. I especially love the moment when you take them off.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You're wearing at least four different kinds of sweater." "This is a scarf." "You look tarred and sweatered.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Honey, I've watched a lot of 90210. The parents weren't even on the show once Brandon and Brenda went to college. This is your time - you're supposed to going to frat parties and getting back together with Dylan." "Why does everybody want me to go to frat parties?" "Who wants you to go to frat parties? I was just kidding. Don't hang out with frat guys, Cath, they're terrible. All they do is get drunk and watch 90210.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You’re never going to find a guy who’s exactly like you—first of all, because that guy never leaves his dorm room.…”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“You can park your snark at the gate, Omaha.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“But you're so helpless sometimes. It's like watching a kitten with its head trapped in a Kleenex box.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“It’s just … everything. There are too many people. And I don’t fit in. I don’t know how to be. Nothing that I’m good at is the sort of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn’t matter—and being good with words. And when those things do matter, it’s only because people want something from me. Not because they want me.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“What about him?†she’d say, finding an attractive guy to point out while they were standing in the lunch line. “Do you want to kiss him?†“I don’t want to kiss a stranger,†Cath would answer. “I’m not interested in lips out of context.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Drunk nerds. Not my thing.†“You like nerds.†“Not nerds who join fraternities,†Cath said. “That’s a whole subclass of nerds that I’m not interested in.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You can’t take back texts. If you come off all moody and melancholy in a text, it just sits there in your phone, reminding you of what a drag you are.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“She didn't want to run, period. It made her breasts feel like they were going to detach from her body.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Eleanor,†he said, just because he liked saying it, “why do you like me?†“I don’t like you.†He waited. And waited… Then he started to laugh. “You’re kind of mean,†he said. “Don’t laugh. It just encourages me.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Just … isn’t giving up allowed sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?†“It sets a dangerous precedent.†“For avoiding pain?†“For avoiding life.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“So why aren’t you living with your sister?†“She wanted to meet new people,†Cath said. “You make it sound like she broke up with you.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Cath ate the banana and held on to his gaze. “I’d give you the moon right now,†she said. Levi’s eyes flashed happily, and he hitched up an eyebrow. “Yeah, but would you slay it for me?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“That moment," she told Cath, "when you realize that a guy's looking at you differently - that you're taking up more space in his field of vision. That moment when you know he can't see past you anymore.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You look ridiculous,†Wren said. “What?†“That shirt.†It was a Hello Kitty shirt from eighth or ninth grade. Hello Kitty dressed as a superhero. It said SUPER CAT on the back, and Wren had added an H with fabric paint. The shirt was cropped too short to begin with, and it didn’t really fit anymore. Cath pulled it down self-consciously. “Cath!†her dad shouted from downstairs. “Phone.†Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it “He must mean the house phone,†Wren said. “Who calls the house phone?†“Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“In some cases, she was actively trying not to make friends, though she usually stopped short of being rude. (Uptight, tense, and mildly misanthropic? Yes. Rude? No.)”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Knowing they were in the same city again made the missing him flare up inside her. In her stomach. Why were people always going on and on about the heart? Almost everything Levi happened in Cath’s stomach.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Smiling is confusing, she thought. This is why I don’t do it.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I don’t want to kiss a stranger,†Cath would answer. “I’m not interested in lips out of context.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Reagan was sitting up at Cath's desk when Cath woke up. "Are you awake?" "Have you been watching me sleep?" "Yes, Bella. Are you awake?" "No.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Are you on drugs?†“No.†“Maybe you should be.…”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Drinking tequila is more about the journey than the destination”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,' he said.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Cath couldn't stop thinking about Levi and his ten thousand smiles.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I wrote all four of my books at Starbucks.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You flirt with old people and babies and everybody in between.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You always ask that. Why. Like there's an answer for everything. Not everybody has your life, you know, or your family. In your life, things happen for reasons. People make sense. But that's not my life. Nobody in my life makes sense…”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Nothing before you counts,†he said. “And I can’t even imagine an after.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“He tried to remember how this happened – how she went from someone he’d never met to the only one who mattered.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Eleanor hadn't written him a letter. It was a postcard. GREETINGS FROM THE LAND OF 10,000 LAKES it said on the front. Park turned it over and recognized her scratchy handwriting. It filled his head with song lyrics. He sat up. He smiled. Something heavy and winged took off from his chest. Eleanor hadn't written him a letter, it was a postcard. Just three words long.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“She’d majored in English, hoping that meant she could spend the next four years reading and writing. And maybe the next four years after that.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I don't have to forgive you, Cath said. It's not like that with you. You're just in with me. Always. No matter what happens.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“No, I know,†Levi said. “But it’s not you. You don’t push through every moment. You pay attention. You take everything in. I like that about you—I like that better.†Cath closed her eyes and felt tears catch on her cheeks. “I like your glasses,†he said. “I like your Simon Snow T-shirts. I like that you don’t smile at everyone, because then, when you smile at me.… Cather.†He kissed her mouth. “Look at me.†She did. “I choose you over everyone.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Park was never going to love her more than he did on the day they said goodbye. And she couldn’t bear to think of him loving her less.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Love. Purpose. Those are things that you can't plan for. Those are things that just happen.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“You're not the ugly one. Levi Grinned. You're just the Clark Kent... ... Will you warn me when you take off your glasses?”
-- Rainbow RowellSource : Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Fangirl”, p.60, Pan Macmillan
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“To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“The whole point of fanfiction is that you get to play inside somebody else's universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn't have to end. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Like, really like you. And i want that kiss to have been the start of something. Not the end.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“As I moved to less and less diverse places in my life, I realized that white people dont talk about race amongst themselves!”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I was in my mid 20s when email finally took off. Until then, the phone was my primary way of connecting with the people in my life.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“With Attachments, my goal was to write a really good romantic comedy. I wanted the reader to be smiling throughout.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“A landline is an anchor - busy signals, long distance bills, missed connections and all.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I like science fiction, I like fantasy, I like time travel, so I had this idea: What if you had a phone that could call into the past?”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You don't know when you're twenty-three. You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten - in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems. She didn't know at twenty-three.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“He didn't take her breath away. Maybe the opposite. But that was okay-that was really good, actually, to be near someone who filled your lungs with air.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“I think I can live without you, but it won't be any kind of life.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“I dare you to call Ask-A-Nurse and tell them you feel a presence in your womb region.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You're a kaleidoscope, you change every time I look away.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“The only dating advice I have to offer is: Expect the guys in your life to be kind and respectful. Don't make excuses for garbagey behavior-'Oh, that's just what guys are like.' It isn't true. Expect them to be good, treat them like they're good. And if they're garbagey, move on. Don't let your world get cluttered up with people who think they have some gender-based right to be awful.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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“Everybody drinks," she said calmly. The Only Rational One. "Your sister doesn't." When rolled her eyes. "Forgive me, but I'm not going to spend my college years sitting soberly in my dorm room, writing about gay magicians." "Objection," Cath said, reaching for a burrito.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“You know," he said, "I keep wanting to say that it's like Simon Snow threw up in here... but it's more like someone else ate Simon Snow—like somebody went to an all-you-care-to-eat Simon Snow buffet—and then threw up in here.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
“Eggnog reminds me of mucus." "Me, too. But in a good way.”
-- Rainbow Rowell -
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