Beth Revis Quotes

I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one.

(D)reams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't.

I can think of no better way to meet a girl than to see her through the eyes of the story she loves best.

Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

And in her smile I see something more beautiful than the stars.

This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you. ~ Amy

Well, sometimes home is a person.

It is like a piece of my soul had been lost, empty, and it is now filled with the light of a million stars.

That's all you need to know about Godspeed," he says. "Although you should also know this. I am Eldest." Good for you, I think. Congrats on being old.

But...If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope.

Choice or no, my heart is his.

Maybe the secret of the stars has nothing to do with being alone.

For a moment, he looks back at me, and his farewell is in his smile. Then he turns to the stars. And he is gone.

The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another but they are so distant so very far apart that they cannot feel the warmth of each other even though they are made of burning.

I want to take her into my arms and hold her tight. But at the same time, I know that is the exact opposite of what she wants. She wants to be free, and all I want is to hold her tight against me. ~ Elder

Will you stay with me?" I whisper. "Always.

Sorry? Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. Every. Single. Thing. I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was.

Love without choice isn't love at all.

...So, I do what any reasonable person would do when faced with a crying girl. I get the frex out of there.

What is in our hearts is real whether we name it or let it exist only in darkness or silence.

But death doesn't work like that. It doesn't care if someone loves you, doesn't want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.

A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people.

More than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass....

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars. A million suns. Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home. But all of them are out of reach. [p.218]

He's the only stable thing in the swirling chaos.

I could tell them about the different kinds of rain, pouring rain that's perfect for when you want to stay inside and watch a movie or read, or piercing rain that feels like needles on your skin, or soft summer rain that makes your first kiss with your first love all the sweeter. ~ Amy

And there is nothing between us but rain. Then there is nothing between us at all.

And I look at Harley, and the billions of stars are in his eyes, and he's drinking them up, pouring them into his soul.

It's always in the rain...

But Amy," Elder says. "Space suits!

I've never seen the stars before. And I never knew they were so beautiful.

But there's a difference, isn't there? Between saying goodbye and death.

I'll always come back to you.

We all die someday." Maybe the only thing that makes that fact bearable is the idea that death is the only way we can return to the stars.

I will never, never be the same. I have seen stars. Real stars.

There is only him and me and this thing between us that I cannot name, not out loud, but that my heart knows is love.

I look up. And I am surrounded by the universe. silence and stars A million suns stretch out beyond me, their light piercing the darkness.

I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can.

He sounds like a regular Hitler to me", Amy mutters. I wonder what she means by that. Eldest has always taught me that Hitler was a wise, cultured leader for his people. Maybe that's what she means: Eldest is a strong leader, like Hitler was. ~ Elder

I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.

And I know without being told that she killed herself. And I totally understand why.

I quit thinking.

It's hard to think about all the bad when she reminds me of all that's good.

I’m sorry.’ The two most inadequate words in the English language.

Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars. A million suns.

It's Elder who's my safe place. Elder's my home.

When I look at the fields, all I can see is how fake they are, how poor an imitation they are of the pictures of Sol-Earth fields. [...] And that's why I'll never be as good an Eldest as he is. Because I like a little chaos.

I might have the whole world now, but it's not enough if I don't get to share it with her.

That is what a book is: a million little things, a thousand feelings, hundreds of experiences, all melted together and sculpted into a book-shaped vessel.

I would trade all the stars in the universe if I could just have him back again.

Maybe one day the smears of paint Harley left throughout Godspeed will fade, and maybe the stars never will, but i'd rather have Harley's colors.

I open my mouth. I want o say: I'm breaking, and i need someone to hold me together. But no sound comes out.

This is the secret of the stars. In the end, we are alone no matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you. Maybe the secret of the stars has nothing to do with being alone.

Who are the real monsters?

Sometimes home is a person.

I choose this," I say, my voice ragged with want. "I choose you.

Memories always kill nightmares.

People are, at their heart, constantly moving toward a state of entropy. Much like this ship. We’re all spiraling out of control.

It's bad, being frozen, but it's better than waking up alone.

I feel alone. I don't mean i feel lonely; I mean i feel alone, the same way i feel the blanket resting on my body, or the feathers of my pillow under my head, or the tight string of my sleep pants twisted up around my waist. I feel alone as if it were an actual thing, seeping throughout this whole level like mist blanketing a field, reaching into all the hidden corners of my room and finding nothing living but me. It's a cold sort of feeling, this.

So you’re sticking with me, and I’m sticking with you.

Should we wait?" "Yes! YES. Wait - I'm coming. Just give me some time to thaw, and I will rise from the ice and live again. I will be your frozen phoenix. Just give me a chance!

If it's a matter of dying here or dying there, I think I'd like to at least see the world first.

God, did they know? A year made the world of difference! This was one more year I could be with Jason, one more year I could live! I signed up for three hundred years. . . not three hundred and one!

We can fight, and we can disagree, but I'm never going to let you walk away from me thinking I don't love you.

This ship is built on secrets; it runs on secrets", he says, tiny droplets of spittle flying from his mouth to my face. "And if you keep asking about them, you'll see how far I'm willing to go to keep mine." ~ Eldest

If someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back

I am as silent as death. Do this: Go to your bedroom. Your nice, safe, warm bedroom that is not a glass coffin behind a morgue door. Lie down on your bed not made of ice. Stick your fingers in your ears. Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. Because what if I am dead?

Holding Amy against me, I realize the simple truth is that power isn't control at all - power is strength, and giving that strength to others.

Like walking through water. Like drowning.

I'm going to find a way to fix you" "I'm not broken", Amy says in a voice as empty as her eyes. I lead her down the hall, deposit her in her chamber, and tell her not lo leave. I have no doubt she will follow my order.

Don't you see? Those monsters you've been so worried about. Not aliens. People. The monsters have always been people.

You never know all of a person; you only know them in a specific moment of time.

Wannagogardenwime?" I ask all in one breath. My eyes grow wide. What came over me? Why would I blurt that out like that? ~Elder

I can get closer.

You must dedicate your whole life to this idea: you are the caretaker of every single person on this ship. They are your responsibility. You can never show weakness in front of them: you are their strength. You can never let them see you in despair: you are their hope. You must always be everything to everyone on board.

You could drop me anywhere in the universe, blindfolded, and I'd know this was his room just from the smell.

What matters right now is this: we're each of us standing here, together, alive, together.

We fall into each other. All the other voices in my head--the fear, the doubt, the worry--are drowned out. I die at the end of each kiss and am brought gasping back to life at the beginning of the next. I close my eyes and the entire world fades away.

This journey... it's long". He says this as if he's felt all 250 years of travel.

He blinks. Touches the side of my face, near my eyes. My eyes that are blue now, not green. With oval irises. "I'm still me," I say, because my greatest fear now is that he doesn't want a hybrid Amy. He cocks an eyebrow. "You think I care if your eyes are blue or green? I just care about you." His hand slips down my arm, and he wraps his pinky finger around mine. "You came back to me," I say, my voice breaking over unshead tears of joy. "I'll always come back to you," he tells me pulling me close. Always.

Amy pulls away and looks into my face. Her pale skin is blotchy red, her eyes are veined and shadowed, and a shiny line of snot trickles from her nose to the top of her lip. She wipes her face and with her arm, smearing tears and mucus. She never looked more BEAUTIFUL to me.

A good book will give you answers to questions you didn't know you had. A great book will give you questions to answers you thought you knew.

But why run? Run where? What's the point? Seems silly, running. May as well stand here. And wait. The world seems slow.

Elder mocked me for praying once, and i spent an hour berating him for that. He ended up throwing up his hands, laughing, and telling me i could believe whatever i wanted if i was going to hold onto my beliefs so hard.

People will survive anything for their children.

Even though I know the rain is fake, it feels the same as real rain, and I desperately need that.

We're the ones who arent normal. People are supposed to be like that: obedient, calm, working together. It's us-who can't focus, who can't work together, who can't do the Feeder or Shipper jobs-we're the ones who aren't normal. We're the ones who have to take the mental meds just so we don't go loons.

...that was before I'd started thinking about how life stuck on a ship wouldn't be so bad if Elder walked around pantless more.

This ship is built on secrets; it runs on secrets

There's a meaning behind blank pages, too.

If we don't have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it's a lie if it keeps us alive?

This is... mating, it's not love.

I realize the simple truth is that power isn’t control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

I saw you running," she says, her attention on the rabbit. "What were you running from?" "Just running," I say. She watching me silently and intently, like a cat. "Why?" she asks. I shrug. "Why not?" "It's not Productive." She says it like productivity is holy, the only thing worth having. "So?" ~Amy

Eldest thinks power is control, that the best way to be a leader is to force everyone into obedience. Holding Amy against me, I realize the simple truth is that power isn't control at all-power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn't someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to other so that they may have the strength to stand on their own. This is what I've been looking for since the first day I was told that I was born to lead this ship. Leading Godspeed has nothing to do with being better than everyone else, with commanding and forcing and manipulating. Eldest isn't a leader. He's a tyrant. A leader doesn't make pawns-he makes people.

You want to just dump me in space?" My voice is low, but not for long. "It's not like I've done anything wrong! I didn't wake myself up, you know!" Eldest shrugs. "It would be by far the simplest solution. You are, after all, nonessential." "We can't do that," the doctor says, and I totally forgive him for being creepy and threatening me with drugs.

I stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of burning. This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you.

I am as silent as death. Do this: Go to your bedroom. Your nice, safe, warm bedroom that is not a glass coffin behind a morgue door. Lie down on your bed not made of ice. Stick your fingers in your ears. Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. Because what if I am dead? How can someone without a beating heart, without breathing lungs live like I do? I must be dead. And this is my greatest fear: After 301 years, when they pull my glass coffin from this morgue, and they let my body thaw like chicken meat on the kitchen counter, I will be just like I am now. I will spend all of eternity trapped in my dead body. There is nothing beyond this. I will be locked within myself forever. And I want to scream. I want to throw open my eyes wake up and not be alone with myself anymore, but I can't. I can't.

I look up, and he’s searching my eyes, just like he did after kissing me for the first time in the rain. “What are you looking for?” He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. I know what he wants. And it’s not fair. “Just because we’re the only two teenagers on this whole ship doesn’t mean I have to love you. Why can’t I have a choice? Options?” Elder steps back, stung. “Look, it’s not that I don’t like you,” I say quickly, reaching for him. He jerks away. “It’s just…” “Just what?” he growls. Just that if I was back on Earth instead of on this damn ship, if I had met Elder at school or at a club or on a blind date, if I had my choice between Elder and every other boy in the world…Would I love him then? Would he love me? Love without choice isn’t love at all. “Just that I don’t want to be with you just because there’s no one else.” [p.57-58]