Shaun David Hutchinson Quotes

We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live. The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching on.

Depression isn't a war you win. It's a battle you fight every day. You never stop, never get to rest. It's one bloody fray after another.

I saw the world from the stars' point of view, and it looked unbearably lonely.

Sometimes I think gravity may be death in disguise. Other times I think gravity is love, which is why love's only demand is that we fall.

We're not words, Henry, we're people. Words are how others define us, but we can define ourselves any way we choose.

That's the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can't live in them.

We remember the past, live in the present, and write the future.

Your entire sense of self-worth is predicated upon your belief that you matter, that you matter to the universe. But you don't. Because we are the ants.

Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long dead and buried deep.

Because you can only die once but you can suffer forever.

What if I don’t give a shit about the world?” “I’d say that’s pretty fucking sad.” “Why?” “Because the world is so beautiful.

People don’t really change; they just find something else to give their life meaning.

Why me?” “Because I can be myself around you, even if I don’t know who I am yet.

I was diamond on the outside, and I would not break. Inside, though, I was already broken.

Grief is an ocean, and guilt the undertow that pulls me beneath the waves and drowns me.

I could write my name across the sky, and it would be in invisible ink.

Milkshakes make the world seem less shitty.

As human beings, we seek meaning in everything. We're so good at discovering patterns that we see them where they don't exist.

Maybe the only way to really start over is to tear everything apart.

History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.

As human beings, we're born believing that we are the apex of creation, that we are invincible, that no problem exists that we cannot solve. But we inevitably die with all our beliefs broken.

There's an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.

How ugly we must look to them, spilling light into every dark corner to push back the shadows, blinding ourselves to the true beauty of emptiness.

Maybe love doesn’t require falling after all. Maybe it only requires that you choose to be in it. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with us or how much time we had left, but I wasn’t going to waste a second of it.

He didn’t kill himself because of a single overwhelming problem; he died from a thousand tiny wounds.

We're all Holden Caulfield at fifteen, but when we grow up we want to be Atticus Finch

The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching on.

Popularity is teenage heroin.

The universe may forget us, but our light will brighten the darkness for eons after we've departed this world. The universe may forget us, but it can't forget us until we're gone, and we're still here, our futures still unwritten. We can choose to sit on our (expletive) and wait for the end, or we can live right now. We can march to the edge of the void and scream in defiance. Yell out for all to hear that we do matter. That we are still here, living our absurd...lives, and nothing can take that away from us. Not rogue comets, not black holes, not the heat death of the universe. We may not get to choose how we die, but we can choose how we live. The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching on.

Don't get so focused on where you're going that you forget the people you're travelling with. There's no point reaching a destination if you arrive alone.

Jesse believed stories were the collective memories of the world, recorded in books so that each of us could know who we were before we became who we are.

Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility.

You spend your life hoarding memories against the day you'll lack the energy to go out and make new ones, because that's the comfort of the old age. The ability to look back at your life and know that you left your mark on the world. But I'm losing my memories, it's like someone's broken into my piggy bank and is robbing me one penny at a time. It's happening so slowly, I can hardly tell what's missing.

Life's truest horror is a door that slams shut that can never be opened again.

I hate Jesse for leaving me behind. If he asked, I would have walked into the air with him.

A star's light still shines even if there's no one to see it, but without someone to remember Jesse, his light will disappear.

I should be dead. I wish I were dead. Because you can only die once, but you can suffer forever.

This was how Diego saw me. I was Henry Denton and I was Space Boy. I was broken and I was beautiful. I was nothing and I was everything. I didn't matter to the universe, but I mattered to him.

It's like I keep waiting to look in the mirror and recognize the person staring back.

If you can't paint yourself honestly, everything else you paint will be a lie too." - Diego

They want to believe, but there are too many villains in the world and not enough heroes for anyone to truly buy into the scam that is hope.

When the days are darkest, dear, you latch on to happiness wherever you find it.

The moment we forget that even the evil among us are still human is the moment we forget that even the most human among us are still evil.

It's impossible to let go of the people we love. Pieces of them remain embedded inside of us like shrapnel. Every breath causes those fragments to burrow through our muscles, nearer to our hearts. And we think the pain will kill us, but it won't. Eventually, scar tissue forms around those twisted splinters like cocoons. They remain part of us, but slowly hurt less.

We're not words...we're people. Words are how others define us, but we can define ourselves any way we choose.

It happens in the dark space between blinks, in the void between breaths.

How do you move on from something like that?" How do you deal with losing all the people you love?" "You don't, she says. "Not like anyone expects you to." Grandma Brawely signs and rests the frame on the bed. 'Life goes on with or without you, and that's just the reality of it. You never move on, you just keep moving forward.

It's a date." "It's a cookie." "It's a cookie date.

I realize that adults are just as fucked as the rest of us. No one really grows up. No one unravels all of life's many mysteries. They just grow older and become better liars.

I was surrounded by heaven. The sun, the moon, the earth, and all those living stars. They wen't static like in pictures taken from impossibly far away- they breathed, they glowed. They were future and past, possibility and memory. They were beautiful. "I never knew there were so many," I whispered. We are merely pieces of a grander design, even more insignificant than I imagined. When the earth ceases to be, all those stars will shine on. Out deaths will mean nothing to them. "I feel so small." No one replied. I wondered as I watched the stars, really seeing them for the fist time, whether they could see me, too.

We have to watch Nana's life slipping away from her like a forgotten word. I thought I understood what's happening to her, but this isn't like being robbed a penny at a time. Memories aren't currency to spend; they're us. Age isn't stealing from my grandmother; it's slowly unwinding her.

That’s how life is; it just goes on

If a kid looks like he doesn't give a shit, it's not because he doesn't believe in himself anymore; it's because no one else believes in him.

Wake up, go to school, go home. Repeat until the world ends.

If you knew the world was going to end, but you had the power to stop it, would you?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because Jesse believed that life wasn't worth living, and I refuse to prove him right.

But that's the difference between people and stars. A star's light still shines even if there's no one to see it, but without someone to remember Jesse, his light will disappear.

But two people can love each other and still not belong together, even if neither of them wanted to admit it.

That’s the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can’t live in them.

Sex is biological. Kissing is art.

Because sometimes it’s easier to start over with a clean slate than to drag the baggage of your past with you wherever you go.

The farther we are from one another, the further we live in each other’s pasts

Age isn't stealing from my grandmother; it's slowly unwinding her.

The only thing in life that's forever is death. You can change your mind about everything else.

Physicists have theorized that we live in an infinite and infinitely expanding universe, and that everything in it will eventually repeat. There are infinite copies of your mom and your dad and your clothes-stealing little sister. There are infinite copies of you. Despite what you've spent your entire life believing, you are not a special snowflake. Somewhere out there, another you is living your life. Chances are, they're living it better.

Love isn’t obvious until you’re in it. It’s not a punch in the face that leaves you reeling. Love is gradual and sneaky. It grows like weeds between the cracks of a hundred average moments.

I didn’t even need to check my phone to know that the universe had shrunk again, and the stars had vanished. No. They hadn’t vanished. I’d given them away to someone who hadn’t deserved them, and I’d never get them back.

You can't fight gravity. Gravity is love. Love requires us to fall.

The funny thing is,' Calvin said, 'I thought I'd been breathing underwater this whole time, but I guess I've been drowning.

Feelings are intangible,” he said. “You can’t see them, can’t touch them. You can hurt and no one would know. But physical pain is real. You can see blood and broken bones. It’s simple in a way feelings are not, and cutting makes the abstract pain of feelings substantial.

You can choose to be happy with what life gives you...or spend your life miserable. I choose happiness. It's really that simple.

Bonding over illegal drugs hadn't magically solved our problems,

A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and aliens I'd never heard of.

People spend a lot of time thinking about the planets that might orbit all those stars, but they ignore the worlds inside themselves.

Falling in love is about hormones and pheromones and powerful emotions that overwhelm our better judgement. Staying in love requires time and effort and knowledge and trust that has to be earned over the course of lifetimes. Falling in love is the illusion. Staying in love is the real miracle.

There’s an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.

I like people, not the parts they have.” Diego frowned. “Well, I mean, I definitely like the parts; they’re just not why I like the person.

We make choices. We make bad choices. But we still deserve the right to choose.

Sometimes I feel like I'm floating alone in the ocean. Other times I feel like the ocean's in a paper cup.

Sometimes I wish I'd find a zipper on the back of my head so I could unzip my skin and find the real me underneath.

Now that I had something to lose all I could think about was holding onto the thing I'd found.

But that's life. One long tunnel. There are lights along the way. Sometimes they feel spread farther apart than others, but they're there. And when you find one, it's okay to stand under it for a while to catch your breath before marching back into the dark.

I’d never ride a rocket into out space, so standing at the edge of the ocean was probably the closest I’d get to touching something boundless and greater than myself. For me, the ocean had a way of putting the rest of the world into context for a couple seconds.

Why do people who so obviously hate children have so many of them? Audrey asked...Because they hate everyone else more. Their bratty kids are their revenge on a society that has denied them the riches they so rightly deserve.

Only someone who cares could fake not caring so well.

She's the gristle stuck between Time's teeth, and I love her for it.

Like, if people shined, some would shine brighter.

I was broken and I was beautiful. I was nothing and I was everything. I didn't matter to the universe, but I mattered to him.

I wasn't going to kill myself, but I wasn't going to stop dumb luck from taking me out either.

It was chance. A random series of events given meaning by somone desperate to prove there's a design to our lives. That the minutes and hours between our birth and death are ore than frantic moments of chaos. Because if that's all they are - if there are no rules governing our lives - then our entire existence is a meaningless farce.

It seems silly to worry about the arbitrary moment some person long dead declared to be the end of one year and the beginning of another, as if our attempts to divide time into meaningful chunks actually mean anything. People wait for the countdown to tell them it's okay to believe in themselves again. They end each year with failure, but hope that when the clock strikes twelve, they can begin the new year with a clean slate. They tell themselves that this is the year things will happen, never realizing that things are always happening; they're just happening without them.

The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever. "I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside an UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die.

The boxes that are supposed to help us understand one another ultimately wedge us further apart. Even worse is that we rage against the artificial divisions the boxes create, claim that we’re more complex and complicated than how we’re defined by others, and then turn around and stuff the next person we meet into one and tape the lid shut. And then, as if the indignity of life isn’t enough, when a person dies, we cram what’s left of them into one final box for eternity.

I held on to the hope that one day I would grow up and have all the answers, just like my parents. As I look over at Arnold and then at Father Mike, I realize that adults are just as fucked as the rest of us. No one really grows up. No one unravels all of life's many mysteries. They just grow older and become better liars.

Sometimes when a star collapses, it becomes a fiery supernova, but other times the core density is so great that it quietly consumes itself, forming a black hole, its gravitational pull so terrible that nothing can escape, not even light. You can't see a black hole, but if you look closesly, you can witness its effect on those objects nearest to it - the way it changes the orbit of solar systems or draws off a star's light a little at a time, sucking it down to its dense center, Maybe we couldn't have stopped Jesse's collapse, but we should have seen it happening.

The universe may forget us, but our light will brighten the darkness for eons after we’ve departed this world. The universe may forget us, but it can’t forget us until we’re gone, and we’re still here, our futures still unwritten. We can choose to sit on our asses and wait for the end, or we can live right now. We can march to the edge of the void and scream in defiance. Yell out for all to hear that we do matter. That we are still here, living our absurd, bullshit lives, and nothing can take that away from us. Not rogue comets, not black holes, not the heat death of the universe. We may not get to choose how we die, but we can choose how we live. The universe may forget us, but it doesn’t matter. Because we are the ants, and we’ll keep marching on.

I know we’ve never properly met, so you’ve got no reason to believe me, but I think you’re wrong about love. Love isn’t war. Life is the war; love is a truce you find in the middle of all that violence. And I bet there’s someone out there who loves you, even if you don’t know them yet.

Sometimes coming out isn't about us. It's not fair that we have to carry the emotional burden of sharing our secret and making sure the person we're coming out to is okay, but we make concessions for the people we care about. Besides, I may have run the scenarios for this conversation but my mom had been running scenarios about my entire life since the day she had learned she was pregnant with me.

The only fear a guy felt when he asked out a girl was fear that she might reject him. He didn’t worry that she might gather a few of her friends, surprise him afterward in a dark parking lot on his way home from work, tie him up, torture and beat him, and then leave him to die. He never had to worry that, even if she said yes, they’d have to pretend to only be friends when they were in public, because if they didn’t someone might spit on them or call them names or attack them.

If you knew the world was ending, and you had the chance to stop it, would you?” “Of course. [...] Why do you ask?” “Oh,” I said. “It’s for a school project.” “That’s interesting.” I shook my head. “Not really. Like I said: it’s just a school thing.” Zooey turned toward me, giving me her undivided attention. “Not the question—the fact that you’d even need to ask.

We've all got secrets, you know? We've all got things about ourselves we hate and these dark places inside of us we're terrified to show people. We live in constant fear that someone is going to discover the rotting corpses we keep buried in those dark places, and that when they do, they'll despise us for them...Being in love with someone is knowing that no matter what you show them, no matter what you've done, they'll never reject you.