Shaun T Quotes

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.

You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.

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.

Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot -- in this case, my brother, Shaun -- deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.

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.

I may be going nowhere, but what a ride.

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 just find it interesting that kids apparently used to cry when Bambi's mother died. George and I both held our breaths, and then cheered when she didn't reanimate and try to eat her son.

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.

You discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to see its car-ness, and you’re like an immigrant to your own world. You don’t have to travel to encounter weirdness. You wake up to it.

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.

Eyes so young, so full of pain ... Two lonely drops of winter rain ... And no tear could these eyes sustain ... For too much had they seen.

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.

He'll die first, we both know it, but I don't know... I really don't know how long I'll stay alive without him. That's the part Shaun doesn't know. I don't intend to be an only child for long.

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.

Shaun get your sister her glasses. She looks naked without them. It's creeping me out.

Today is the tomorrow you were promised yesterday.

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.

Fuck it. Let's blow some shit up." - Shaun Mason

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

Life was such a precious thing, easily broken.

Chaos is an excuse for people who don't have the patience to see the patterns.

Love's more than holding hands and going to dances. It's two people who struggle to live, even when they should maybe both be dead. When one of them would be better off dead.

It's the oldest story in the world. Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back thanks to the unethical behavior of megalomaniacal mad scientists who never met a corpse they wouldn't try to resurrect. Anyone coming within a hundred yards of my happy ending had better pray that they're immune to bullets. - Shaun Mason

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

Post-traumatic shock,' said Shaun. 'He thinks he's a boa constrictor.

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.

The world is full of people who will help you manufacture tornados in order to blow out a match.

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.

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.

I am putting a mental jigsaw together of what a hobbit looks like, based on a composite of every customer I have ever sold a copy to.

This is crap," Shaun said, withdrawing his arm. "Right," I agreed. "Absolutely fucking crap." "No argument." "I want to punch somebody right about now." "Not it," Rick said. "I punch back," Steve said.

Then you know why I'm not in the mood for sunshine and puppies." I paused. "That expression makes no sense. Why the hell would I ever be in the mood for puppies?" "Shaun—" "I could go with sunshine, though. Sunshine is useful. It should really be 'sunshine and shotguns.' Something you'd actually be happy about." "Shaun—

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.

His whole life was a sham, a fairy tale. The truth hidden behind a wall of lies, each lie another brick in the wall until he probably couldn't see the truth anymore.

Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to...

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

Being punished doesn't mean you should miss out on being loved.

I am full of mistakes and imperfections and therefore I am real ...

Hospital walls have no memory. They would crumble under the weight of so much suffering. It's better that they forget.

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

People are predictable. That's what makes them easy to kill.

Anyone can put paint on a canvas, but only a true master can bring the painting to life. Anyone can kill, but only a genius can make murder an art.

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

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.

A night of crying has silenced me. This morning it seems the whole world is against me. I've never before felt so barren, so empty. I've never before thought the daylight to be ... my enemy. My enemy.

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.

The Federal Department of Odds and Ends: sweepus underum carpetae.

Now I'm a God, but tomorrow, when you have to stop me from playing with dead things again, you'll be right back to calling me an idiot, won't you?

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

So you want to hear a story? Well, I used to know a whole lot of pretty interesting ones. Some of them so funny you'd laugh yourself unconscious, others so terrible you'd never want to repeat them. But I can't remember any of those. So I'll just tell you about the time I found that lost thing....

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.

Cancer gave me an understanding of the point of all this. To survive. Most of our lives it is easy but for the moments when it becomes difficult, when accident or sickness or sadness strikes, it's just about remembering one thing. You must simply survive.

I saw you before. All your flaws, your imperfections. Your body’s going to a lot of trouble to hide something, something inside of you. It must be very precious.

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.

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.

When the time comes for you to leave this earth, if it doesn’t become a lesser place with your absence, then you have wasted your life.

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

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.

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

If death can cry, maybe we all have a chance for redemption.

Except he and I know that some pain burrows so deep, no narcotic can ever soothe it. It's etched on your bones. It hides in your marrow, like cancer. If the boy survives, the pain is a memory he won't want.

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.

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.

Money can't buy happiness, BUT it can buy books (which is basically the same thing).

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.

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.

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

...he has so much he wants to tell the boy, but most important, maybe, is this: life makes monsters of everyone, but it's always possible to come back. Pain and death are real, but so are love, and family, and forgiveness.

It's sad that in a world of billions, people can still feel isolated and alone. Sometimes all it takes to brighten up someone's day is a smile or kind word, or the generous actions of a complete stranger. Small things, the tiny details, these are the things that matter in life — the little glint in the eye, curve of a lip, nod of a head, wave of a hand — such minuscule movements have huge ripple effects.

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.

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.

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.

It's funny how these days, when every household has its own inter-continental ballistic missile, you hardly even think about them. . . . A lot of us, though, have started painting the missiles different colors, even decorating them with our own designs, like butterflies or stenciled flowers. They take up so much space in the backyard, they might as well look nice, and the government leaflets don't say that you have to use the paint they supply.

Yes, we all know that there's a good chance the missiles won't work properly when the government people finally come to get them, but over the years we've stopped worrying about that. Deep down, most of us feel it's probably better this way. After all, if there are families in faraway countries with their own backyard missiles, armed and pointed back at us, we would hope that they too have found a much better use for them.

Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Northmen's thing made southfolk's place but howmulty plurators made eachone in per-son? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis! He had buckgoat paps on him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daugh-ters of. Whawk? Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flitter-ing bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can't hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffey-ing waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter- sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who wereShem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!

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 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.

A woman spent about ten minutes looking around the shop, then told me that she was a retired librarian. I suspect she thought that this was some sort of a bond between us. Not so. On the whole, booksellers dislike librarians. To realise a good price for a book, it has to be in decent condition, and there is nothing librarians like more than taking a perfectly good book and covering it with stamps and stickers before – and with no sense of irony – putting a plastic sleeve over the dust jacket to protect it from the public. The final ignominy for a book that has been in the dubious care of a public library is for the front free endpaper to be ripped out and a ‘DISCARD’ stamp whacked firmly onto the title page, before it is finally made available for members of the public to buy in a sale. The value of a book that has been through the library system is usually less than a quarter of one that has not.

Have you ever wondered What happens to all the poems people write? The poems they never let anyone else read? Perhaps they are Too private and personal Perhaps they are just not good enough. Perhaps the prospect of such a heartfelt expression being seen as clumsy shallow silly pretentious saccharine unoriginal sentimental trite boring overwrought obscure stupid pointless or simply embarrassing is enough to give any aspiring poet good reason to hide their work from public view. forever. Naturally many poems are IMMEDIATELY DESTROYED. Burnt shredded flushed away Occasionally they are folded Into little squares And wedged under the corner of An unstable piece of furniture (So actually quite useful) Others are hidden behind a loose brick or drainpipe or sealed into the back of an old alarm clock or put between the pages of AN OBSCURE BOOK that is unlikely to ever be opened. someone might find them one day, BUT PROBABLY NOT The truth is that unread poetry Will almost always be just that. DOOMED to join a vast invisible river of waste that flows out of suburbia. well Almost always. On rare occasions, Some especially insistent pieces of writing will escape into a backyard or a laneway be blown along a roadside embankment and finally come to rest in a shopping center parking lot as so many things do It is here that something quite Remarkable takes place two or more pieces of poetry drift toward each other through a strange force of attraction unknown to science and ever so slowly cling together to form a tiny, shapeless ball. Left undisturbed, this ball gradually becomes larger and rounder as other free verses confessions secrets stray musings wishes and unsent love letters attach themselves one by one. Such a ball creeps through the streets Like a tumbleweed for months even years If it comes out only at night it has a good Chance of surviving traffic and children and through a slow rolling motion AVOIDS SNAILS (its number one predator) At a certain size, it instinctively shelters from bad weather, unnoticed but otherwise roams the streets searching for scraps of forgotten thought and feeling. Given time and luck the poetry ball becomes large HUGE ENORMOUS: A vast accumulation of papery bits That ultimately takes to the air, levitating by The sheer force of so much unspoken emotion. It floats gently above suburban rooftops when everybody is asleep inspiring lonely dogs to bark in the middle of the night. Sadly a big ball of paper no matter how large and buoyant, is still a fragile thing. Sooner or LATER it will be surprised by a sudden gust of wind Beaten by driving rain and REDUCED in a matter of minutes to a billion soggy shreds. One morning everyone will wake up to find a pulpy mess covering front lawns clogging up gutters and plastering car windscreens. Traffic will be delayed children delighted adults baffled unable to figure out where it all came from Stranger still Will be the Discovery that Every lump of Wet paper Contains various faded words pressed into accidental verse. Barely visible but undeniably present To each reader they will whisper something different something joyful something sad truthful absurd hilarious profound and perfect No one will be able to explain the Strange feeling of weightlessness or the private smile that remains Long after the street sweepers have come and gone.