Emily Xr Pan Quotes

There's no point in wishing. We can't change anything about the past. We can only remember. We can only move forward.

Once you figure out what matters, you'll figure out how to be brave.

We're not lost. We're just headed somewhere different.

The purpose of memory is to remind us how to live.

Believing is a type of magic. It can make something true.

It’s okay to be afraid. But not okay if be afraid means you do nothing. You must not do nothing. That’s not life worth living.

Once upon a time we were the standard colors of a rainbow, cheery and certain of ourselves. At some point, we all began to stumble into the in-betweens, the murky colors made dark and complicated by resentment and quiet anger.  At some point, my mother slid so off track she sank into hues of gray, a world drawn only in shadows.

Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again. A moment of humiliation, or devastation, or absolute rage, to be rewound and replayed, spinning a thread that wraps around the brain, knotting itself into something of a noose. It won't exactly kill you, but it makes you feel the squeeze of every horrible moment. How do you stop it? How do you work the mind free?

Everything fades. Everything in the physical world, like paper and furniture, but also things in the mind. Memories, emotions. Life. Friendships. Those fade, too. It’s just a matter of time.

Here is my mother, with wings instead of hands, and feathers instead of hair. Here is my mother, the reddest of brilliant reds, the color of my love and my fear, all of my fiercest feelings trailing after her in the sky like the tail of a comet.

We kissed, and I was every color in the world, alight.

最難風雨故人來 [...] it’s an incredible blessing to be able to see your loved ones during the most difficult times.

Colors flash like promises and black flickers like static, like memories, and everything is falling, falling, remembering, falling, remembering, the two words synonymous.

Hold your finger to the sky with so much force it lengthens like a spine. Look up to the point of it and beyond. There. That tiny patch of the world, no bigger than the tip of your finger. At first glance, it might look like one flat color. Blue, or gray, or maybe even orange. But it's much more complex than that. Squint. See the daubs of lilac. The streak of sage no wider than a hyphen. That butterscotch smear and the faint wash of carnelian. All of them coming together to swirl at the point just above your finger. Breathe them in. Let them settle in your lungs. Those are the colors of right now.

Children know the truth," says Feng, her voice going very quiet. I turn to look at her. "What? What do you mean?" "They haven't learned to walk around with a veil over their eyes. That's a habit that come with adulthood. Kids always know what they see. That's why ghosts can't hide from them.

Memories tell a story, if you look hard enough. Because the purpose of memory, I would argue, it to remind us how to live" -Leigh

Did my mother ever get to see a cicada molting? Did she wish that she could do exact that? Shed her skin and be someone new? There were days when she seemed to transform into something quieter, darker. Her colors deeper but also muted. Both her truer self, and not. Or maybe it wasn't a transformation. Maybe it was a momentary reveal. A peeling back of the protective layers. A sharpening of a pencil, bringing the tip to its most focused point.

Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.

My mother's dying soaked down through the carpet, through the wood. When it was done with the bedroom, it took over our house, and then it moved on to me. It soaked through my hair and skin and bone, through my skull and deep into my brain. Now it's staining everything, leaking the blackest black into the rest of the world.

What is memory? It's not something you can physically hold, or see, or smell, or taste. It's just nerve impulses jumping between neurons. Sometimes it's a matter of choice. Other times it's self-preservation, or protection" -Leight

Maybe that's where all the other colours are hiding - in a dimenson of the world we just can't see, between our sky and the rest of the universe.

From up here she would do the most extraordinary thing she was capable of: She would love.

She was a sea creature and the music was her ocean.

The more I think about it, the more that believing seems like the ultimate definition of family.

Here, in two dimensions, they looked so happy. But then, didn’t everyone, in pictures? That was almost the point, wasn’t it? To be able to look back and see yourself smiling, even if the camera had shuttered and clicked while you were standing there thinking about all the things that were wrong?

If he looked in my eyes straight on, he would know how he’d pierced me with an arrow, how its shaft was still sticking out of my chest, twitching each time my heart contracted. And maybe he’d see how my mother had sliced up everything else.

Once upon a time we’d been an almost perfect family. I wish we could rewind, go back to live in those years forever.

Pretend you're a kid again and you don't even know what's good. Just try for the sake of trying. For the sake of having fun.

What would I give for a remote control with a button to slow down time, or even rewind a little bit?

We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display—that’s not the true nature of remembering.

Some terrible requirement of being a teenager is being absolutely awful when your parents are being lovely.

I guess the universe has a way of knocking supposed-tos right on their asses.

I'll do all the things I constantly forgot to, all the things I wish I could go back and add in like another layer on a watercolour painting.

Sisters are very lucky... They get to be best friends. Even in the afterlife, I think they recognize the presence of the other better than anyone else.

Purple confusion clouds my mind.

Memories that tell a story, if you look hard enough. Because the purpose of memory, I would argue, is to remind us how to live.

I wish I could command my brain, say to it: Here. Go ahead. Unspool, and let the memories go. Let them be gone.

I listen to the clock striking out each determined tick. If only I could rewind, go back in time and ask my mother every question about every tiny thing. How crucial those little fragments are now; how great their absence. I should have saved them up, gathering them like drops of water in a desert. I'd always counted on having an oasis.

If only I could rewind, go back in time and ask my mother every question about every tiny thing. How crucial those little fragments are now; how great their absence. I should have saved them up, gathered them like drops of water in a desert. I’d always counted on having an oasis.

Each piece was a snow globe of emotion and instinct. And the music-- that was another language entirely.

The mother-shaped hole became a cutout of the blackest black. Something I could only see around. If I tried to look directly at it, I saw emptiness.

Because the purpose of memory, I would argue, is to remind us how to live.

But things are good," Caro went on. "It's kind of scary how good." "What do you mean, scary?" Caro shrugged. "I mean, our whole relationship is the payoff of being brave enough to go for something we both wanted. But we have to stay brave.

A baby bouncing over a knee above a familiar leather sofa. Across the room, deft hands mapping out black and white keys. A living room bursting with magenta warmth and dandelion cheer and all the hues of love, invisible but undeniably there.

I think people see ghosts all the time, " says Feng. "And I think ghosts want to be seen. They want to be reassured that they truly exist. They back into this world after passing through the gates of death into another dimension, and suddenly they hear every thought, speak every language, understand things they didn't get when they were alive.

Once upon a time we were the standard colors of a rainbow, cheery and certain of ourselves. At some point, we all began to stumble into the in-betweens, the murky colors made dark and complicated by resentment and quiet anger.

I tried to swallow again, but my throat was dry enough to be splintered apart and used for kindling

A friend had said to her once that it wasn’t worth expending such emotional energy, that it was like drinking poison and hoping someone else would die.

Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe we were two magnets the universe had been drawing together all this time.

What makes a person—one who is so deeply loved—decide to do such a thing?

Before me lay a body grayer than a sketch. Someone had applied makeup and colors to try to make it look alive. I didn’t cry. That was not my mother. My mother is free in the sky. She doesn’t have the burden of a human body, is not made up of a single dot of gray. My mother is a bird.

Back at home, sometimes people say I look exotic or foreign. Sometimes they even mean it as a compliment. I guess they don't hear how that makes it sound like I'm some animal on display at the zoo.

It's nobody's fault. But is that even true? It's only human nature to look for a place to lay the blame. Our fingers are more than ready to do the pointing it's like we're all blindfolded and spinning

There was a restlessness between her ribs, itching and pulling at her heart. A feeling that she was meant to do much more. She and Roxy had gone to see Dead Poets Society a couple years ago, and afterward that quote from Robin Williams’s character had echoed endlessly in Luna’s head: “Make your lives extraordinary.

His boy smells wafted over; the sweetness of his deodorant, the smoky floral of some other product, and, beneath all that, a scent like the quiet grass at night.

Her face was so earnest, so sweet. When she shined her light on him, he felt safe and protected. He felt loved.

They traced each other's veins and kissed until their lips were swollen, until they thirsted from something unknown .

They traced each other's veins and kissed until their lips were swollen, until they thirsted from something unknown.

There was something disturbing about seeing her in that loneliness-induced sleep.

Funny how when you can't sleep the brain turns itself inside out, becomes a desperate and hungering thing. All I want right now is to fall headfirst into the blackest black.

She said your name is powerful. It's just like the Mandarin word for strength. Li.

She was the color of home.

Breathe them in. Let them settle in your lungs. Those are the colors of right now.

She was a sea creature and the music was her ocean. It had always belonged to her. It was in her every breath, her every movement. She was the color of home.

Once you figure out what matters, you’ll figure out how to be brave.

Sisters are very lucky,” Feng says quietly. “They get to be family and they also get to be best friends. Even in the afterlife, I think they recognize the presence of the other better than anyone else.

The surface gleamed like hard candy that would dissolve on the tongue. What was that silvery garden scent, so faint and tantalizing? She held the stone up to the moonlight, and then brightness exploded around her.

Once upon a time we were the standard colours of a rainbow, cherry and certain of ourselves. At some point, we all began to stumble into the in-betweens, the murky colours made dark and complicated by resentment and quiet anger.

En mi interior aún hay un agujero con forma de madre. Siempre lo habrá. Pero tal vez no tenga por qué ser un hoyo profundo y oscuro donde tropezar y caerme. Tal vez pueda ser una vasija. Algo que albergue recuerdos y colores (…)

The clung to me as I dug through my bag of the keys to the house, it was a warm rain, and it looked gray as it came down from the sky. I imagined it to be liquid armor, shaping itself to my body where it made contact. Shielding me from everything

The rain clung to me as I dug through my bag of the keys to the house, it was a warm rain, and it looked gray as it came down from the sky. I imagined it to be liquid armor, shaping itself to my body where it made contact. Shielding me from everything

If Axel were there with me, he probably would’ve squeezed my shoulder and asked, What color? And I would’ve had to explain that I was colorless, translucent. I was a jellyfish caught up in a tide, forced to go wherever the ocean willed. I was as unreal as my mother’s nonexistent note.

Tiene gracia que, cuando no puedes dormir, el cerebro se ponga patas arriba, se convierta en algo desesperado y hambriento. Lo único que quiero ahora mismo es caer de cabeza en la más negra de las negruras. Lo único que quiero es que todo se apague para poder descansar al fin. Que los colores se detengan. Mandar lejos los pensamientos.

Whose fault was it? That’s the question on everyone’s mind, isn’t it? Nobody will ever say it out loud. It’s a question people would call inappropriate. The kind of thing where everyone tells you, “It’s nobody’s fault.” But is that even true? It’s only human nature to look for a place to lay the blame. Our fingers are more than ready to do the pointing, but it’s like we’re all blindfolded and spinning. What makes a person want to die?

My bike leaned into his, both of them held in the embrace of heavy-duty locks that we'd threaded through the wheels and frames. It occurred to me - sadly, pathetically - that those bikes looked romantic. They touched and bumped without hesitation, without thought. They'd shared in so many adventures; they had history. They belonged together.

They drift back into this world after passing through the gates of death into another dimension, and suddenly they hear every thought, speak every language, understand things they didn’t get when they were alive.

Whose fault was it? That’s the question on everyone’s mind, isn’t it? Nobody will ever say it out loud. It’s a question people would call inappropriate. The kind of thing where everyone tells you, “It’s nobody’s fault.” But is that even true? It’s only human nature to look for a place to lay the blame. Our fingers are more than ready to do the pointing, but it’s like we’re all blindfolded and spinning. What makes a person want to die? She had me. She had Dad. She had her best friend, Tina. She taught piano lessons to a third of the kids in our neighborhood. Anyone who knew her would have said she seemed like the happiest. The most alive. When she laughed, her face bloomed and you felt warm at the center. Those last few months her laughs came rare. I noticed it, I really did. But I chalked it up to moodiness; she’d always been in the habit of swinging from one extreme to the other. I excused it too quickly, too easily. Was it my fault? If I had only— Or if Dad had only— If Mom had only— What?

We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display—that’s not the true nature of remembering. Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again. A moment of humiliation, or devastation, or absolute rage, to be rewound and replayed, spinning a thread that wraps around the brain, knotting itself into something of a noose. It won’t exactly kill you, but it makes you feel the squeeze of every horrible moment. How do you stop it? How do you work the mind free? I wish I could command my brain, say to it: Here. Go ahead. Unspool, and let the memories go. Let them be gone.

The eighty-ninth floor of the Taipei 101 tower is the observatory deck, where you can look out at the entire city through walls of glass. Buildings in miniature. Mountains layered in the distance like gentle strokes of watercolor, the farthest ones fogged and fading into the clouds. It’s a strange juxtaposition: the city so tightly packed, everything built so closely together—and beyond that, the sprawling greens and blues of lush forests.

Funny how when you can’t sleep the brain turns itself inside out, becomes a desperate and hungering thing. All I want right now is to fall headfirst into the blackest black. All I want is for everything to shut off so I can finally rest. Make the colors stop. Send the thoughts away. Let everything go still. Is this what it feels like to want to reach the end? Is this the kind of existence that led my mother to become a bird?

My mother’s hands have turned to wings. Her hair, to feathers. Her pale complexion now red as blood, red as wine, every shade of every red in the universe. The bird. The bird. The bird. That’s all I can think about. Crawling into bed is like swimming through something thick and murky. My every limb weighed down. Brain hazy with sleep deprivation. Eyes aching, the periphery of my vision dull and watery. I should be able to sleep. I’m exhausted. But the moment I close my eyes, they flutter. I have to strain to keep them shut. The bird the bird the bird. My mother the bird.

Once, Dad and I went to a choir concert where my mother was the piano accompanist. Everyone was watching the conductor, the singers, the soloists—but we kept our faces angled toward the far left of the stage. There, my mother leaned over the huge piano, her hands heavy as anvils when the voices stormed, fluttering light as a dove when the voices sailed low and quiet. Her chords kept time like a clock. She turned her own pages, her hand flying so quickly it was like a magic trick; if you blinked you would miss it. Nobody but us watched her, but she was playing for all the world. She was a sea creature and the music was her ocean. It had always belonged to her. It was in her every breath, her every movement. She was the color of home.

I have no idea how to answer her. The tremors start in my toes, making their way up the rest of my body. I am an earthquake. Any second now, I’m going to split apart.

Here are a few statistics: Someone in the world dies by suicide every forty seconds. For every death by suicide there are more than twenty others attempting it. It’s the tenth-ranking cause of death in the United States. One of every sixty-two Americans is a suicide loss survivor. Those were taken from the World Health Organization and the American Association of Suicidology’s official data—the most recent available at the end of 2018 (the time of my writing this updated note).

Our plane lands ahead of schedule, but it’s still late at night when we finally pull up to our house. The stars and the crickets are all out and calling us home. Our curtains are drawn, but a soft glow pours around the edges. A familiar pang hits me. This is how the house used to look when I came home after dark and Mom was in the living room, trilling away at the piano. If I don’t walk inside, maybe I can just stand out here with my suitcase and feel like she’s still there, waiting for me to go in so she can shout a greeting over the music without stopping her fingers. I can pretend that when she finishes the Rachmaninoff, she’ll swing her legs around the piano bench and leap up to give me a hug. And in a few days, when it’s Sunday, I’ll roll out of bed and find her in the kitchen making waffles with berries and whipped cream. I’ll hear that sunny voice chirp “Good morning!” to me while I’m still shaking off the fog of sleep, and I’ll grunt back in response, remember to smile at her, offer to help mix the batter. I’ll do all the things I constantly forgot to, all the things I wish I could go back and add in like another layer on a watercolor painting. “You coming, Leigh?” says Dad. Our driver pulls away from the house, and then there’s just me standing in the driveway with my suitcase, staring as Dad fiddles with his keys on the front porch. I let loose a long, slow exhale. “Guess we forgot to turn off the lights, huh?” “We didn’t,” he says, and the two simple words send my heart racing. Because what could that mean, except that Mom is actually alive and home and waiting for us right inside? My heart speeds as I drag my suitcase up to the porch and haul it in, trailing after Dad through the soft yellow light and into our house. “You’re home! Welcome back!” Arms wrap around me, and it takes a moment too long for me to process the shoulder pressing into my cheek, the soft shirt against my skin, the smell of deodorant and shampoo all wrong.

Hold your finger to the sky with so much force it lengthens like a spine. Look up to the point of it and beyond. There. That tiny patch of the world, no bigger than the tip of your finger. At first glance, it might just look like one flat color. Blue, or gray, or maybe even orange. But it’s much more complex than that. Squint. See the daubs of lilac. The streak of sage no wider than a hyphen. That butterscotch smear and the faint wash of carnelian. All of them coming together to swirl at the point just above your finger. Breathe them in. Let them settle in your lungs. Those are the colors of right now.