85 Quotes & Sayings By Jandy Nelson

My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy. . Jandy Nelson

People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn't. It continues and is ever-changing. Jandy Nelson

Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it! " to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it. . Jandy Nelson

This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. Jandy Nelson

There once was a girl who found herself dead. She peered over the ledge of heavenand saw that back on earthher sister missed her too much, was way too sad, so she crossed some pathsthat would not have crossed, took some moments in her handshook them upand spilled them like diceover the living world. It worked. The boy with the guitar collidedwith her sister." There you go, Len, " she whispered. "The rest is up to you. Jandy Nelson

Everyone has always said I look like Bailey, but I don't. I have grey eyes to her green, an oval face to her heart-shaped one, I'm shorter, scrawnier, paler, flatter, plainer, tamer. All we shared is a madhouse of curlsthat I imprison in a ponytailwhile she let hers ravelike madnessaround her head. I don't sing in my sleepor eat the petals off flowersor run into the rain instead of out of it. I'm the unplugged-in one, the side-kick sister, tucked into a corner of her shadow. Boys followed her everywhere;they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed, herded around her at the river. One day, I saw a boy come up behind herand pull a strand of her long hair I understood this- I felt the same way. In photographs of us together, she is always looking at the camera, and I am always looking at her. Jandy Nelson

Grief is a housewhere the chairshave forgotten how to hold usthe mirrors how to reflect usthe walls how to contain usgrief is a house that disappearseach time someone knocks at the dooror rings the bella house that blows into the airat the slightest gustthat buries itself deep in the groundwhile everyone is sleepinggrief is a house where no one can protect youwhere the younger sisterwill grow older than the older onewhere the doorsno longer let you inor out . Jandy Nelson

[Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon]I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym. Jandy Nelson

The sky's gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything. Awesome. Doomsday's most definitely been cancelled. Landscape: When God Paints Outside The Lines Jandy Nelson

This is our story to tell. He says it in his Ten Commandments way and it hits me that way: profoundly. You'd think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven't. I've never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always feel like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in ita telling whatsoever. You can tell your story any way you damn well please. It's your solo. . Jandy Nelson

SELF PORTRAIT: Throwing Armfuls of Air into the Air Jandy Nelson

And I see that his brown eye has a splash of green in it and the green one a splash of brown. Like Cezanne painted them. Impressionist eyes. Jandy Nelson

Nor that he's regarding my face with the same intensity I am his. We're two paintings staring at each other across a room. Jandy Nelson

No I contradict myself. Picasso he do too. He say pull out your brain, yes, he also say, 'Painting is a blind man's profession' and 'To draw you must close your eyes and sing.' And Michelangelo, he say he sculpts with his brains, not his eyes. Yes. Everything ia true at once. Life is contradiction. We take in every lesson. We find what works. Okay, now pick up the charcoal and draw. Jandy Nelson

Are you an artist?"" I'm a mess is what I am, " he says, holding on to the building for support. "A bloody mess. You 're the artist, mate." Then he's gone. Jandy Nelson

Good. That is it. You will see with your hands, I promise you. Jandy Nelson

Was the sky always this shade of magenta? Jandy Nelson

For the sun, stars, oceans, and all the trees, I’ll consider it. Jandy Nelson

The sky's gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything. Jandy Nelson

Because how could he have done this? How could he have chosen to leave me here all alone? Jandy Nelson

How could a mother who boils water for pasta leave two little girls behind? Jandy Nelson

Mom has a massive sunflower for a soul so big there's hardly any room in her for organs. Jude and me have one soul between us that we have to share: a tree with its leaves on fire. And Dad has a plate of maggots for his. Jandy Nelson

She's a people-mechanic and always knows when I'm malfunctioning. Jandy Nelson

Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it? Jandy Nelson

The coolest guys aren't afraid to be feminists. Jandy Nelson

What if I'm in charge of my own damn light switch? Jandy Nelson

I do not want to eat or drink, or i will lose the taste of you in my mouth Jandy Nelson

There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. Jandy Nelson

When I wear her clothes, I just feel safer, like she's whispering in my ear. Jandy Nelson

I'm in self-imposed exile, cradled between split branches, in my favorite tree in the woods behind school. I've been coming here every day at lunch, hiding out until the bell rings, whittling words into the branches with my pen, allowing my heart to break in private. Jandy Nelson

Someone might as well roll up the whole sky, pack it away for good. Jandy Nelson

I drop on my back on the bed, panting and sweating. How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives. I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her? . Jandy Nelson

That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. Jandy Nelson

For days and days, the rain beat its fists on the roof of our house– evidence of the terrible mistake God had made. Each morning, when I woke I listened for the tireless pounding, looked at the drear through the window and was relieved that at least the sun had the decency to stay the hell away from us. Jandy Nelson

I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her? Jandy Nelson

Sadness pulses out of us as we walk. I almost expect the trees to lower their branches when we pass, the stars to hand down some light. I breathe in the horsy scent of eucalyptus, the thick sugary pine, aware of each breath I take, how each one keeps me in the world a few seconds longer. I taste the sweetness of the summer air on my tongue and want to just gulp and gulp and gulp it into my body--this living, breathing, heart-beating body of mine. . Jandy Nelson

As I walk through the redwood trees, my sneakers sopping up days of rain, I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes, when grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe. Jandy Nelson

I don't know how this can be but it can: A painting is both exactly rhe same and entirely different every single time you look at it. Jandy Nelson

I can't shove the dark out of my way. Jandy Nelson

Maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people, " I say. "Maybe we're accumulating these new selves all the time. Jandy Nelson

Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don't get any of it. Jandy Nelson

I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open. And when we kiss, i see that on the other side of that door is sky. Jandy Nelson

The.World.Is.Not.A.Safe.Place. Jandy Nelson

I'd been making desicions for days. I picked out the dress Bailey would wear forever-a black slinky one- innapropriate- that she loved. I chose a sweater to go over it, earrings, bracelet, necklace, her most beloved strappy sandals. I collected her makeup to give to the funeral director with a recent photo- I thought it would be me that would dress her; I didn't think a strange man should see her nakedtouch her bodyshave her legsapply her lipstickbut that's what happened all the same. I helped Gram pick out the casket, the plot at the cemetery. I changed a few linesin the obituary that Big composed. I wrote on a piece of paper what I thoughtshould go on the headstone. I did all this without uttering a word. Not one word, for days, until I saw Bailey before the funeraland lost my mind. I hadn't realized that when people say so-and-sosnappedthat's what actually happens- I started shaking her- I thought I could wake her upand get her the hell out of that box. When she didn't wake, I screamed: Talk to me. Big swooped me up in his arms, carried me out of the room, the church, into the slamming rain, and down to the creekwhere we sobbed togetherunder the black coat he held over our headsto protect us from the weather. Jandy Nelson

If she were drowning, I'd hold her head under Jandy Nelson

Me would like an invisibility cloak to get the hell out of this mess. Jandy Nelson

I have a very low eerie threshold. Jandy Nelson

I'm thinking the reason I've been so quiet all those years is only because Brian wasn't around yet for me to tell everything to. Jandy Nelson

In photographs of us together, she is always looking at the camera, and I am always looking at her. Jandy Nelson

I notice he doesn't have his meteorite bag and see out the window it's probably going to pour any minute, but wee need to et out of here. Immediately. "We're going to search for meteorites, " I say, like that's what most people do on winter mornings. I never really told either of them too much about last summer, which is reflected in both of their flummoxed faces. But who freaking cares? Not us. In a flash, we're through the door, across the street and into the woods, running for no reason and laughing for no reason and totally out of breath and out of our minds when Brian catches me by my shirt, whips me around, and with one strong hand flat against my chest, he pushes me against a tree and kisses me so hard I go blind. Jandy Nelson

What is bad for the heart is good for art. Jandy Nelson

Love does as it undoes. It goes after with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak. Her happiness was his unhappiness and that's the unfair way it was. Jandy Nelson

They do make love stories for girls with black hearts after all. They go like this. Jandy Nelson

My heart leaves, hitchhikes right out of my body, heads north, catches a ferry across the Bering Sea and plants itself in Siberia with the polar bears and ibex and long-horned goats until it turns into a teeny-tiny glacier. Because I imagined it. Jandy Nelson

You can tell your story any way you damn well please. Its your solo. Jandy Nelson

Male leads in love stories need to be devoted, need to chase trains, cross continents, give up fortunes and thrones, defy convention, face prosecution, take apart rooms and break the backs of angels, sketch the beloved all over the cement walls of their studios, build sculptures as homages. They don't flirt shamelessly with the likes of me when they have Transylvanian girlfriends. What an effing jerk. Jandy Nelson

The sky's always falling. Always. You'll see. People have no idea. Jandy Nelson

This is how he came out: he floated into the air high above the sleeping forest, his green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars. Jandy Nelson

There were once two sisterswho were not afriad of the darkbecause the dark was full of the other's voiceacross the room, because even when the night was thickand starlessthey walked home together from the riverseeing who could last the longestwithout turning on her flashlight, not afraidbecause sometimes in the pitch of nightthey'd lie on their backsin the middle of the pathand look up until the stars came backand when they did, they'd reach their arms up to touch themand did. Jandy Nelson

And it's just dawned on me that I might be the author of my own story, but so is everyone else the author of their own stories, and sometimes, like now, there's no overlap. Jandy Nelson

I tell you not to be timid. I tell you to make the choices, make the mistakes, big, terrible, reckless mistakes, really screw it all up. I tell you it is the only way. Jandy Nelson

The eye-roll is a 10.5 on the Ritcher. The Big One. California has slipped into the ocean. Jandy Nelson

Maybe what my sister wanted was to stay here and get married and have a family. Maybe that was her color of extraordinary. Jandy Nelson

I have an impulse to write all over the orange walls- I need an alphabet of endings ripped out of books, of hands pulled off of clocks, of cold stones, of shoes filled with nothing but wind. Jandy Nelson

The feet of ghosts never touch the ground. Jandy Nelson

You have to see the miracles for there to be miracles. Jandy Nelson

I know the expression love bloomed is metaphorical, but in my heart in this moment, there is one badass flower, captured in time-lapse photography, going from bud to wild radiant blossom in ten seconds flat. Jandy Nelson

The smell of jasmine makes people tell their secrets Jandy Nelson

She's a sun-kissed beach girl who goes gothgrungepunkhippierockeremocoremetalfreakfashionistabraingeekboycrazyhiphoprastagirl to keep it under wraps. Jandy Nelson

You are remaking the world, Noah. Drawing by drawing Jandy Nelson

And even as I'm kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, I wish I were kissing him, wanting more, more, more, more, like I can't get enough, never will be able to get enough. Jandy Nelson

I run my hands through his hair, finally, finally, finally, then bring his head to mine and kiss him so hard our teeth collide, planets collide, kissing him now for each and every time we didn't all summer long. I know absolutely how to kiss him too, how to make his whole body tremble just from biting his lip, how to make his whole body tremble just from biting his lip, how to make him moan right inside my mouth by whispering his name, how to make his head fall back, his spine arch, how to make him groan through his teeth. Jandy Nelson

Isn't that what I always think when I get The Poor Motherless Girl Look? Like I've been shoved out of the airplane without a parachute because mothers are the parachutes. Jandy Nelson

It's like having explosives on board 24/7, the way I feel. I can't believe when I touch things they don't blow to bits. I can't believe I was so way off. I thought, I don't know, I thought wrong. Jandy Nelson

The guy's life drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists? Jandy Nelson

I do find the sibling connection endlessly fascinating, as I do all family dynamics. I like how siblings seem to create their own parentless mini-civilization within a family, one that has its own laws, myths, language, humor, its own loyalties and treacheries. Jandy Nelson