“
You saved my life. Why couldn't I save yours?
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Because it's not a lie if it's how you feel.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Never bullshit a bullshitter.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don't want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundered different people most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn't worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs - here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Finch: Theodore Finch, in search of the Great Manifesto
Violet: I don't know that what means
Finch: It means 'the urge to be, to count for something, and, if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclamation - in short, to remain a memory.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
In case you haven't noticed, we're already involved, Finch. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm broken too.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
You are driving me crazy. You have been driving me crazy for weeks.
”
”
Jennifer Niven
“
I think this is the ugliest place I’ve ever seen. Not just here. The whole state.” I hear my parents telling me not to be negative, which is funny because I’ve always been the happy one. It’s Eleanor who was moody. “I used to think that. But then I realized, believe it or not, it’s actually beautiful to some people. It must be, because enough people live here, and they can’t all think it’s ugly.” He smiles out at the ugly trees and the ugly farmland and the ugly kids as if he can see Oz. As if he can really, truly see the beauty that’s there. In that moment I wish I could see it through his eyes.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
You make me happy...
You make me special...
You make me lovely...
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Sometimes things feel true to us, even if they're not.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
When she looks up again two miles later, she says, “You know what I like about you, Finch? You’re interesting. You’re different. And I can talk to you. Don’t let that go to your head.” The air around us feels charged and electric, like if you were to strike a match, the air, the car, Violet, me—everything might just explode. I keep my eyes on the road. “You know what I like about you, Ultraviolet Remarkey-able? Everything.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
As he talks, I lie back against the ground, the blanket wrapped around me, and say to the sky, "May your eye go to the Sun, To the wind your soul, You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Sometimes, things feel true to us, even if they're not.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
For once, I don’t want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundred different people, most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn’t worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs—here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Violet: She was smart, stubborn, moody, funny, mean when she lost her temper, sweet, protective of the people she loved. Her favorite color was yellow. She always had my back, even if we fought sometimes. I could tell her anything because the thing about Eleanor was that she didn't judge. She was my best friend.
Finch: I've never had one. What's it like?
Violet: I don't know. I guess you can be yourself, whatever that means - the best and the worst of you. And they love you anyways. You can fight, but even when you're mad at them, you know they're not going to stop being your friend.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don’t want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundred different people, most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn’t worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs—here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.
”
”
Jennifer Niven
“
If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet
" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
I’m sorry about Finch. He was a good, screwed up kid who should have had more help.” “I feel responsible.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Tranquility is the soul of our community.”
Not a quarter mile’s distance away, Susanna Finch sat in the lace-curtained parlor of the Queen’s Ruby, a rooming house for gently bred young ladies. With her were the room house’s newest prospective residents, a Mrs. Highwood and her three unmarried daughters.
“Here in Spindle Cove, young ladies enjoy a wholesome, improving atmosphere.” Susanna indicated a knot of ladies clustered by the hearth, industriously engaged in needlework. “See? The picture of good health and genteel refinement.”
In unison, the young ladies looked up from their work and smiled placid, demure smiles.
Excellent. She gave them an approving nod.
Ordinarily, the ladies of Spindle Cove would never waste such a beautiful afternoon stitching indoors. They would be rambling the countryside, or sea bathing in the cove, or climbing the bluffs. But on days like these, when new visitors came to the village, everyone understood some pretense at propriety was necessary. Susanna was not above a little harmless deceit when it came to saving a young woman’s life.
“Will you take more tea?” she asked, accepting a fresh pot from Mrs. Nichols, the inn’s aging proprietress. If Mrs. Highwood examined the young ladies too closely, she might notice that mild Gaelic obscenities occupied the center of Kate Taylor’s sampler. Or that Violet Winterbottom’s needle didn’t even have thread.
”
”
Tessa Dare (A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove, #1))
“
From all enchanted things of earth and air, this preciousness has been drawn. From the south wind that breathed a century and a half over the green wheat; from the perfume of the growing grasses waving over heavy-laden clover and laughing veronica, hiding the green finches, baffling the bee; from rose-lined hedge, woodbine, and cornflower, azure blue, where yellowing wheat stalks crowd up under the shadow of green firs. All the devious brooklets’ sweetness where the iris stays the sunlight; all the wild woods hold of beauty; all the broad hills of thyme and freedom thrice a hundred years repeated. “A hundred years of cowslips, bluebells, violets; purple spring and golden autumn; sunshine, shower, and dewy mornings; the night immortal; all the rhythm of time unrolling. A chronicle unwritten and past all power of writing; who shall preserve a record of the petals that fell from the roses a century ago? The swallows to the house-tops three hundred — times think of that! Thence she sprang, and the world yearns toward her beauty as to flowers that are past. The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad.
”
”
Theodore Dreiser (Delphi Collected Works of Theodore Dreiser (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 25))
“
Das ist es, was ich mit Violet machen will: Ich will ihr das Gute geben und das Schlechte von ihr fernhalten, damit wir nur von Schönheit umgeben sind. (Finch)
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
IN HONOR OF HARPER LEE, WHOSE NOVEL PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT PART IN "FINDING GRACE" I SHARE THESE LINES:
Violet and I met at our fort at one o’clock. On our way over to Maryann’s we talked about the book, which Vi called T-KAM for short. I wasn’t sure how to ask, but I had to know. “Hey…what’d you think about the part where Scout asks Atticus if he’s a…um…you know, a…ni–Negro-lover?”
Vi gave me a sideways glance. “You can say it. I know you don’t mean any harm. Scout asked him if he was a nigger-lover, but she’s just a confused kid. I really liked that he told her he was one.”
“That part shocked me.”
“Yeah, and the next time someone yells nigger-lover at my family I’m going to be like Atticus Finch and tell them that I’m trying to love everybody.” Violet grabbed my hand. “But you know what’s crazy?”
Her eyes narrowed, bridged together by two hard lines. Her mouth shifted into a frown so fast that I braced myself. “What?”
“When people say that, I never know if I’m the nigger or the nigger-lover.
”
”
Patricia Dunn-Fierstein (Finding Grace)
“
Ho vissuto ardentemente. E poi sono morto, ma non del tutto. Perché quelli come me non muoiono come chiunque altro. Persisto, come la leggenda del Blue Hole.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Non importa se non abbiamo mai filmato le nostre peregrinazioni. Non importa se non abbiamo preso dei souvenir o non abbiamo avuto il tempo di organizzare i dati raccolti, in modo che avessero un senso compiuto per gli altri.
Il fatto è che ora ho capito: non è importante quello che si prende, ma quello che ci si lascia dietro.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
―No estás solo. ― Y antes que pueda decirle ‹‹De hecho lo estoy, lo cual no forma parte del problema. Todo estamos solos, atrapados en el interior del cuerpo y de la mente, y sea cual sea la compañía que podamos tener en esta vida, no es más que pasajera y superficial››
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
I lean in, and she backs up into a locker. Her eyes are darting everywhere like she’s terrified someone might see Violet Markey and Theodore Finch together. God forbid Ryan Cross walks by and gets the wrong idea. I wonder what she’d say to him—It’s not what it looks like. Theodore Freak is harassing me. He won’t leave me alone. “Glad I can return the favor.” Now I’m pissed. I rest one hand against the locker behind her. “You know, you’re a lot friendlier when we’re by ourselves and no one’s around to see us together.” “Maybe if you didn’t run through the halls and shout at everyone. I can’t tell if you do all this because it’s expected or because it’s just the way you are.” “What do you think?” My mouth is an inch from hers, and I wait for her to slap me or push me away, but then she closes her eyes, and that’s when I know—I’m in.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
Let it out, all that stuff you're carrying around. You're pissed off at me, at your paretns, at life, at Eleanor. Come on. Let me have it. Don't disappear in there.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
She had reached her special tree: a silver beech that Dinsdale, the gardener, said was hundreds of years old. Violet could hear it humming with life behind her: the weevils searching for its cool sap; the ladybug trembling on its leaves; the damselflies, moths, and finches flitting through its branches. She held out her hand and a damselfly came to rest on her palm, its wings glittering in the sunlight. Golden warmth spread through her.
”
”
Emilia Hart (Weyward)
“
No one likes messy. They like smiling Violet. I wonder what Ryan would do if he knew Finch was the one who talked me down and not the other way around. I wonder what any of them would do.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
“
The thing I don't say is: I want to stay alive. The reason I don't say it is because, given that fat folder in front of him, he'd never believe it. And here's something else he'd never believe—I'm fighting to be here in this shitty, messed-up world. Standing on the ledge of the bell tower isn't about dying. It's about having control. It's about never going to sleep again.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)