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

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.

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.

Even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings with something small.

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.

Time jumps. It leaps. It pours away like water through fingers.