Lauren Oliver’s “Delirium” Quotes (81 Quotes)

You have to go forward: It's the only way. You have to go forward no matter what happens. This is the universal law.

You have to learn that people are always listening.

You know you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes, right.

You came from different starts and youÆll come to different ends.

You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".

Hate isnÆt the most dangerous thing, heÆd said. Indifference is.

IÆve always hated being looked at.

Love, it kills you, both when you have it and when you don't.

Summer explodes into Portland. In early June the heat was there but not the color--the green were still pale and tentative, the morning had a biting coolness--but by the last week of school everything is Technicolor and splash, outrageous blue skies and purple thunderstorms and ink-black night skies and red flowers as brights as spots of blood.

He is my world and my world is him and without him there is no world.

I'd rather die my way than live yours.

Love: It will kill you and save you, both

That's all I want. Just you and me. Always.

A string of bright white buildinh, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean.

He who leaps for the sky may fall, itÆs true. But he may also fly.

I'd rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I'd rather die loving Alex than live without him.

Maybe this is the secret to talking to boys--maybe you just have to be angry all the time.

That's when you realize that most of it-life, the relentless mechanism of existing-isn't about you. It doesn't include you at all. It will thrust onward even after you've jumped the edge. Even after you're dead.

Amor deliria nervosa. The deadliest of all deadly things.

He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.

If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do - the only thing - is to run.

Mice? Fine. Flying mice? Not so fine.

The ideaùthe fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about me for more than one secondùis huge and overwhelming, makes my legs go tingly and my hands feel numb.

And now I know why they invented words for love, why they had to: It's the only thing that can come close to describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply through me at once.

HeÆs speaking in the tone of voice that everyone uses when theyÆre about to break you apart. Gentleùkind, evenùlike they can make the news sound better just by speaking in a lullaby voice.

If you're ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up.

My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

The salt blowing off the sea makes the air feel textured and heavy.

And suddenly it's all so ridiculously and stupidly clear I feel like laughing. This is what I want. This is the only thing i've ever wanted. Everything else---every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss---has meant nothing.

Hearts are fragile things. That's why you have to be so careful.

It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being.

My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart.

There are more of us than you think.

And there it is: Even though weÆre standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.

Human beings, in their natural state, are unpredictable, erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal instincts are controlled that they can be responsible, dependable, and content.

ItÆs us against them, three against countless thousands. But for some reason, and even though itÆs absurd, at that moment I feel pretty damn good about our odds.

No guy in his right mind would ever choose me when there are people like Hana in the world: It would be like settling for a stale cookie when what you really want is a big bowl of ice cream, whipped cream and cherries and chocolate sprinkles included.

There's that confidence again, that semi-infuriating easiness of his, the tilt of his head and the smile. but today it's not infuriating. Today I like it, feel like it's somehow rubbing off on me, like if I was around him enough I would never feel awkward or frightened or insecure.

As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though IÆm looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and closing of the shutter.

I feel an overwhelming rush of sadness... I'm just struck with a sense of time passing so quickly, rushing forward. One day I'll wake up and my whole life will be behind me, and it will seem to have gone as quickly as a dream.

It's a miracle I was able to get out of the house today. It's a miracle I'm even wearing pants, a double miracle I remembered to wear shoes.

No wonder the regulators decided on segregation of boys and girls: Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare, this feeling angry and self-conscious and confused and annoyed all the time.

They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And IÆve always believed them. Until now. Now everything has changed. Now, IÆd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie

Black is too morbid; red will set them on edge; pink is too juvenile; orange is freakish

I know what the problem is, of course. The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing - all classic Phase One signs of deliria. But I don't care. If pneumonia felt this good I'd stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet and no coat, or march into the hospital and kiss pneumonia patients

It's like there's a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking.

Nothing has ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him and being unable to do anything about it: like eating ice cream so fast on a hot day you get a splitting headache.

They say the cure is about happiness, but I understand now that it isn't, and it never was. It's about fear: fear of pain, fear of hurt, fear, fear, fear - a blind animal existence, bumping between walls, shuffling between ever-narrowing hallways, terrified and dull and stupid.

Both of us will die today, gunned down or smashed up or exploded in some terrible moment of fire and twisted metal, and when they go to bury us we'll be so melted together and entwined they won't be able to separate the bodies; pieces of him will go with me, and pieces of me will go with him.

I love you. They can't take it away.