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

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.

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.

It's the way he says my name: like music.

Rainstorms are incredible: falling shards of glass, the air full of diamonds.

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

Everything ends, people move on, they don't look back. It's how they should be.

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...