Jenna Fox Quotes

Some things aren't meant to be known. Only believed.

Sometimes there's not a better way. Sometimes there's only the hard way.

My timing is off. But I had to get it out. Some things you have to tell, no matter how stupid they may sound. Some things you can't save for later. There might not be a later.

Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't know they are connected.

I think that maybe forgiveness is like change - it comes in small steps. (256)

Pieces. A bit for someone here. A bit there. And sometimes they don't add up to anything whole. But you are so busy dancing. Delivering. You don't have time to notice. Or are afraid to notice. And then one day you have to look. And it's true. All of your pieces fill up other people's holes. But they don't fill your own.

There is something about her eyes. Eyes don't breathe. I know that much. But hers look breathless.

I thought grandmothers had to like you. It’s a law or something.

Where we are going, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be the place that is important but the steps in between.

When you are perfect, is there anywhere else to go?

I don't want five hundred billion neural chips. I want guts.

There are many words and definitions I have never lost. But some I am only just beginning to truly understand.

...and time becomes a forgotten detail.

Pieces. Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?

Father says it will come in time. “Time heals,” he says. I don’t tell him that I don’t know what time is.

What I think is all I have left. My mind is the only thing that makes me different from a fancy toaster. What we think does matter-it's all we truly have.

I know you have the patience of a rapidly decomposing turd.

Do certain events in our lives leave a permanent mark, freezing a piece of us in time, and that becomes a touchstone that we measure the rest of our lives against?

I used to be someone. Someone named Jenna Fox. That's what they tell me. But I am more than a name. More than they tell me. More than the facts and statistics they fill me with. More than the video clips they make me watch. More. But I'm not sure what.

Are the details of our lives who we are, or is it owning those details that makes the difference?

Awareness There is a dark place. A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words. I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die. But I can't. The darkness and silence go on forever. It is not a dream. I don't dream.

I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feel nothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing - something that happens over which I have no control. (6)

Percentages! Those are for economists, polls, and politicians. Percentages can't define your identity.

I decide that sometimes definitions are wrong. Even if they're written in a dictionary. Identities aren't always separate and distinct. Sometimes they ARE wrapped up with others. Sometimes, for a few minutes, maybe they can even be shared. And if I am ever fortunate enough to return to Mr. Bender's garden, I wonder if the birds will see that piece of him that is wrapped up in me.

One small changed family doesn't calculate into a world that has been spinning for a billion years. But one small change makes the world spin differently in a billion ways for one family.

I used to be someone.

You've always been two people. The Jenna who wants to please and the Jenna who secretly resents in. They won't break, you know. Your parents never thought you were perfect. You did.

I wonder at the weight of a Sparrow.

It's the unknown that I fear, the bites of memories that still have no connections.

But I am more than a name. More than they tell me

... Change doesn't happen overnight-it's molded by people who don't give up

Things I can feel. Hard. Soft. Rough. Smooth. But the inside kind of feel, it is all the same, like foggy mush. Is that the part of me that is still asleep? (9)

Tell me who I am. (29)

When is a cell finally too small to hold our essence?

There are all kinds of friends you make in life... But there's something different about someone who spreads their wings with you.

Words have longer lives than people.

Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?

When your life has had few events to occupy it, it's amazing how a simple encounter can seem like an entire three-act play.

It's other people who make us wise, and I haven't known nearly enough.

I suppose you're right about some perspectives. Just a few weeks ago, I thought you were a dickhead.

Choice I needed it like I needed air. Bit no one could hear me. No one could listen. No words. No sound. No voice. I couldn't even dream myself away. Choices were made. None of them mine. At first I wondered if it was hell. And then I knew it was.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten . . .

How many hours can one person spend locked in a bathroom, looking at skin, hair, eyes. Feeling fingers, toes. And the absurdity of a belly button?

How can you be sure?" "I'm a doctor, Jenna. And a scientist." "Does that make you an authority on everything? What about a soul, Father? When you were so busy implanting all your neural chips, did you think about that? Did you snip my soul from my old body, too? Where did you put it? Show me! Where? Where in all this groundbreaking technology did you insert my soul?

The dictionary says my identity should be all about being separate or distinct, and yet it feels like it is so wrapped up in others.

Multiple closets for different needs. Overkill.

Which weakness shall I tell her? “I walk funny,” I say, and she’s satisfied with that. (inside joke)

He believes me. But that is nothing new. He always did because I was a rule follower. I played by the rules he understood. But there are new rules now, ones he doesn't know yet. He'll learn. Just as I'm learning.

It doesn’t matter how rich or important you are. Everyone’s in the same boat. And medical resources and costs are kept under control.” “What about brains?” Ethan asks. “What are they worth?” “Brains are pretty much illegal.

They placed me on a pedestal from the day I was born! What choice did I have but to be perfect!

I created an icicle sculpture in the snow. White on white.

Being like everyone else is highly overrated.

Maybe we all have a dark place inside of us, a place where dark thoughts and darker dreams live, but it doesn't have to become who we are.

Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't even know they're connected. Father and Lily were two sides of the same coin, I've decided, and maybe I am the space in between.

I almost could. I could almost leave and never look back. Like Mr. Bender, I could leave everything I was behind, including my name. Leave because of Allys and all the things she says I am. Leave because of all the things I am afraid that I will never be again. Leave, because maybe I’m not enough. Leave because of Allys, Senator Harris, and half the world knows better than Father and Mother and maybe Ethan, too. Leave. Because the old Jenna was so absorbed in her own needs that she said yes when she knows she should have said no, and the shame of night could be hidden in a new place behind a new name. But friends are complicated. There is the staying. Staying because of Kara and Locke and all that they will never be except trapped. Staying because for them, time is running out and I am their their last chance. Staying for the old Jenna and all she owes Kara and Locke and maybe all the new Jenna owes them, too. Staying because of ten percent and all I hope I might be. Staying because of Mr. Bender’s erased life and regrets. Staying for connection. Staying because two me is enough to make one of me worth nothing at all. And staying because maybe Lily does love the new Jenna as much as the old one, after all. Because maybe, given time, people do change, maybe laws change. Maybe we all change.

Maybe the impossible is possible when you take everything else away. When nothings left, maybe you can reach for something that no one knew existed. Or maybe we became something new. Maybe we made it exist.

A choir of pink-cheeked boys lift their voices as a priest seems to pull the music from their throats with the urging of his hands.

Our fingers unlace so slowly that I am certain some part of me has been left behind on her fingertips.

People will notice the beauty of what they usually ignore ~

My memory is coming back. It is curious how it comes. Each day, a rush of pieces, loosely connected, unimportant bits, snake through me. They click, click, click into my brain, like links being snapped together. And then they are done. A small chain of memories that fill in one tiny part of my life. They come out of nowhere, and most are not important.

Pieces" Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more? Am I just as full as anyone else? Enough? Pieces. Allys saying "I like you" Gabriel snorting out bread freeing me to laugh. And Ethan reminding me how much I do know. Pieces. I hold them likethey are life itself. They nearly are.

The information. Every bit that of information that was ever in your brain. But the information is not the mind Jenna. That we've never accomplished before. What we've done with you is groundbreaking. We cracked the code. The mind is an energy that the brain produces. Think of a glass ball twirling on your fingertip. If it falls, it shatters into a million pieces. All the parts of a ball are still there, but it will never twirl with that force on your fingertip again. The brain is the same way.

There are a lot of memories we imagine. We play them over and over in our minds, trying to orchestrate our movements and words to perfection. Or maybe it's just that I've lived inside of my head more than any other person in the history of the world. Maybe none of us can really predict how we will act at any give moment. Maybe we're all at the mercy of circumstance in spite of our well-laid plans.

Sometimes it's the smallest and most innocent things you have to watch out for

I just think perfection and lasting through the ages is for Greek statues, not us mere humans.

Or maybe I'm a masochist and I like girls who are as annoying as hell! Don't try to analyze me, Jenna. I am what I am.

And suddenly I feel weak, like every question in my head has collided against each other and won't let me think.

It wears on a person, you know, always having to be perfect. You know that one day something will happen,some problem that won't fit into a neat little project. Something that can't be fixed. Then where does that leave you?" She doesn't hesitate. "You become mortal like the rest of us," she says.

Ethan knows more about himself than he ever wanted to know, and I know less than I should.

I see Jenna, smiling, chattering. And failing. When you are perfect, is there anywhere else to go?

White There was a moment in the darkness when the fear lifted. A moment where white surrounded me. Hope. Lily, and someone else, and a sprinkling of water. "Holy water, Jenna." "You can let go if you need to." "Forgiveness, Jenna." But I couldn't let go. It wasn't in my power. I was already swirling, flying, falling. To someplace deep I didn't understand. Where all the sounds buy my own voice disappeared. Only me. For so long. I don't want to be alone anymore. (120)

These memories descend out of nowhere, giving me pieces of who I was, but their significance is lost. I sigh and resume my walk, not knowing if this memory is important, or just more of the jumbled trivia of Jenna's life, like sock shopping. Maybe that is all any life is composed of, trivia that eventually adds up to a person, and maybe I just don't have enough of it yet to be a whole one.

The world has changed. It’s gotten better. It’s gotten worse. After all these years, Jenna’s words still echo is my head, 'just as one problem is solved, a new one is created.' The work never ends. If there’s one thing you can always count on in this world, it is change. I don’t fear it the way I used to. I try to be read for it. One day, maybe, all the changes will be only for the good. I can dare to dream. I can always hope for more.

Boredom reigns on all levels. The rain is a welcome change. I have seen the pond swell and the creek surge. I press my palm against the glass, imagining the drops on my skin, imagining where they started out, where they will go, feeling them like a river, rushing, combining, becoming something greater than how they started out.

And today, like each time they have landed on my hand for the past two hundred years, I wonder at the weight of a sparrow.

I am not a tomato

And all I want is to hold her and make the rest of the world go away.

Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more? Am I just as full as anyone else? Enough? Pieces. I hold them like they are life itself. They nearly are.

Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all. For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back. I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop. But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out.

where did those words go, words that where once in my head?

smile.

Death isn't a curse. It's the shadow that gives life its form, and that shadow's whispering to me now.

We held hands. We crossed a line. We made one another braver.

The problem is, some people think they're above the law. There are plenty of good reasons why we have so much regulation.

We all have a dark place in us. It's what we do with it and the choices we make.

The human race has always found a group to marginalize--every culture, every time, every race.

Weaknesses? You have no weaknesses? It skips through me. Catches. Weakness. Please, Jenna. We need you. Why do I see Kara’s and Locke’s faces? They couldn’t have been my weaknesses. They feel more like my strengths. “And no weaknesses?” “I didn’t write them down.” “Would you like to share?” Share? I’m afraid. I’m lost. I have no friends. It keeps coming back to that. Why does it bother me so? I have no friends. Which weakness shall I tell her? “I walk funny,” I say, and she is satisfied with that.   Morning

Pieces. I hold them like they are life itself. They nearly are.    

I’m afraid of everything. Myself. Mother. Lily. Friends who haunt me in the night. Even going to school, which is something I asked for. If I have attitude, it is hiding somewhere deep, someplace I’m afraid I may never find. Jenna

She is afraid I will get lost.   Lost adj. 1. No longer known. 2. Unable to find the way. 3. Ruined or destroyed.   I’m afraid I already am.

...there are no spares in case one is lost. Souls are only given once.

The house is still, like the breath has been punched out of it.

wound goes. It is deep. What. How. Oh,