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.




    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.


    It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.

    Of all the systems of the body - neurological, cognitive, special, sensory - the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.

    This is what I want. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. Everything elseùevery single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kissùhas meant nothing.


    I loved Dilirium! It was amazing! The ending was amazing and unexpected. I didn't find any parts of the book underwhelming and it was all fantastic. You'll love it!!!

    It's surprisingly nice out here, peaceful and pretty-strange to be standing in the middle of a little garden while enclosed by the massive stone walls of the prison, like being at the exact center of a hurricane, and finding peace and silence in the middle of so much shrieking damage.

    Poetry isn't like any writing I've ever heard before. I don't understand all of it, just bits of images, sentences that appear half-finished, all fluttering together like brightly colored ribbons in the wind.


    Every single floorboard quivers and shudders under my feet, and I start mentally bargaining with the house: If I make it to the front door without waking up Aunt Carol, I swear to God IÆll never slam another door. IÆll never call you ôan old piece of turdö again.

    I remember love. It's what I have to keep on reminding myself. It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.



    We should be protected from the people who will leave us in the end, from all the people who will disappear or forget us.


    I said, I prefer the ocean when it's gray. Or not really gray. A pale, in-between color. It reminds me of waiting for something good to happen.

    I've been so used to thinking of what the borders are keeping out that I haven't considered that they're also penning us in.

    Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind.

    We stand there for a moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it's as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about god: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected. feeling this way seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get...

    Everything I see and touch reminds me of him, and so everything I see and touch is perfect.

    I want to be healed and whole and perfect again, like a misshapen slab of iron that comes out of the fire glowing, glittering, razor-sharp.

    I've learned to get really good at this - say one thing when I'm thinking about something else, act like I'm listening when I'm not, pretend to be calm and happy when I'm really freaking out. It's one of the skills you perfect as you get older

    Sometimes I feel as though there are two me's, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she's supposed to nod and says what she's supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams... Most of the time they move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I'm two whole different people and I could rip apart at any second.


    Everytime he brushes me with his fingers, time seems to tether for a second, like it is in danger of dissolving. The whole world is dissolving, I decide, except for us. Us.

    I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has suddenly stopped making sense.

    Less than a month ago all of August still stretched before us - long and golden and reassuring, like an endless period of delicious sleep.


    Feelings aren't forever. Time waits for no one, but progress waits for man to enact it.


    Like I've been sketched by an amateur artist: if you don't look too closely, it's all right, but start focusing and all the smudges and mistakes become really obvious.

    Suicide. A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.




    More Lauren Oliver Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Time - World - Emotions - People - Love - Pain - Happiness - Sense & Perception - Mind - Dreams - Thought & Thinking - Fire - Future - Art - Stupidity - Facts - Music - Smiling - Education - View All Lauren Oliver Quotations

    More Lauren Oliver Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - Delirium

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