Quotes From "Reached" By Ally Condie

Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. Ally Condie

...I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live. Ally Condie

Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't. When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are–how impossible to reach. Ally Condie

Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't. When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are--how impossible to reach. Ally Condie

Reaching and reached. Cassia Ally Condie

Sometimes paper is only paper, " my mothers says. "Words are just words. Ways to capture the real thing. Don't be afraid to remember that." I know what she means. Writing, painting, singing--it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. Ally Condie

She's right. We would compose poems about love and tell stories that have been heard in some form before. But it would be our first time feeling and telling. Ally Condie

Writing, painting, singing--it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. Ally Condie

For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey between footsteps makes up our lives Ally Condie

They both have in common their conviction that they are still learning, still growing, when in fact they have long ago lost that ability. Ally Condie

I draw in a ragged breath, the kind you take when the pain is too deep to cry, when you can't cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist. I want to do something to make this better, even though I know that nothing can change the fact of my father gone and under ground. Ally Condie

Inside me are the real things that give me strength–my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut. Ally Condie

The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have. Ally Condie

We need you."" I'm sorry, but I can't let that keep me here anymore. Ally Condie

Until now, I've never been able to see while I fly, and I feel a dizzying lightness as I look out at the land bel Ally Condie

No, ' she says, as if the suggestion is ridiculous. 'I wouldn't go back to where I'm from. I'd go someplace I've never been. Ally Condie

Good-bye, ” I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own. Ally Condie

Did you know Grandfather would give the poems to me?” I ask.“ We thought he might, ” my mother says.“ Why didn’t you stop him?”“ We didn’t want to take away your choices, ” my mother says.“ But Grandfather never did tell me about the Rising, ” I say.“ I think he wanted you to find your own way, ” my mother says. She smiles. “In that way, he was a true rebel. I think that’s why he chose that argument with your father as his favorite memory. Though he was upset when the fight happened, later he came to see that your father was strong in choosing his own path, and he admired him for it. Ally Condie

I never needed the Society, " she says, "to Match me." (-Lei) Ally Condie

The earth reflects the sky and the sky meets the earth and, every now and then, if we're lucky, we have a moment to see how small we are. Ally Condie

I keep telling myself that, and most of the time I believe it. Ally Condie

I don't know what happens after we die. It doesn't seem to me like there can be much past this. But I suppose I can conceive that what we make and do can last beyond us. Maybe in a different place, on another plane. Ally Condie

I'm so Ally Condie

I draw in a ragged breath, the kind you take when the pain is too deep to cry, when you can't cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist. Ally Condie

I know how it feels when people look right through you, or worse, see you as something or someone other than what you are. Ally Condie

He's throwing everything he can into the air on the chance that something might take flight. And we're the smallest, weakest bird. Ally Condie

It could have been different, " I say, almost under my breath. If I'd kissed Indie again after she kissed me. If I hadn't known Cassia before I met Indie."But it's not, " Indie says, and she's right. Ally Condie