Best 46 quotes of Courtney Summers on MyQuotes

Cardboard cutouts of cheerleaders operated by arthritic monkeys would move more fluidly.

Everyone should know--there's no such thing as a decent human being. It's just an illusion. And when it's gone, it's really gone.

Is this what it's like to get close to other people--you do something insane together and then you have to share everything even if you don't really want to?

The fall takes no time and forever.

The thing no one tells you about surviving, about the mere act of holding out, is how many hours are nothing because nothing happens. They also don’t tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it’s like there’s nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you’d be crushed under the weight of it.

Time passes too quickly when you're getting ready to do something you don't want to do.

Waiting around to be saved is like waiting to die and I have done more of both than anyone else in the room.

We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the soundtrack of our own impending death.

Write it down today, put it away, make sense of it tomorrow.

...a deadline should not prevent you from writing, but writing will help prevent you from missing your deadline. Then write a word. Then remind yourself of that again. And then write another and hey, look at you! You’re spitting in that deadline’s eye.

And the whole time they're doing this, my sister is dead.

Because you made it here on a lot less" he says and he has no idea how on the mark he is.

Behind the building was a field and when the potpourri scent of her cleaner made me sneeze, I went outside. There were calves there, these sweet things that watched me with less interest than I watched them. There was this raggedy one, sitting in the middle of the field, its mother nearby. I didn’t realize it was sick until it tried to get up and it couldn’t. It kept trying and it couldn’t and then, eventually—it didn’t. After a while, a truck drove in. A man and a boy got out, looked it over while its mother stood close. It was dead, the calf. Dead and too heavy to load into the truck bed, so they tied a rope around its neck, tied the other end to the truck and dragged it off the field like that. Its mother watched until it disappeared and when it was out of view, she called for it. Just kept calling for it so long after it was gone. Sometimes I feel something like that, between my mom and me. That I’m the daughter she keeps calling for so long after she’s been gone.

Caro's right. She should be scared. Everything's out of her hands now. All the things coming Ava's way they won't be able to control, things she won't always ask for because she's a girl. She doesn't even know how hard it's going to be yet, but she will, because all girls find out. And I know it's going to be hard for Ava in ways I've never had to or will ever have to experience and I want to apologize to her now, before she finds out, like I wish someone had to me. Because maybe it would be better if we all got apologized to first. Maybe it would hurt less, expecting to be hurt.

Dad was thirsty, not given to great displays of affection, like his father and his father's father before him. A long line of self-indulgent men who couldn't give love but lived to take it, which isn't the same as receiving it. They were all in so much pain and that's always the perfect excuse.

Don't divide me into before and after.

Every little thing about you can be a weapon, if you're clever enough.

Her eyes widen and she shoves me back and then there's a space between us, enough to paralyze me with all of the things I could do to her next. I could raise my hand and hit her in the face or bring my knee into her stomach, take a fistful of her hair and rip it out of her skull. You don't get to do this when you're a girl, so when the opportunity for violence finally presents itself, I want all of it at once.

He was planning to rape me -" "Why would he ever -" "Because he knew he'd get away with it.

I am so sad. I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts. I shift, restless, but it doesn’t help. It’s like—time. All this time in here is on me, has its hooks in me. Maybe if I sleep more, I’ll wake up and I’ll feel different, but I can’t. The storm is really happening now and it makes the room feel emptier. Makes me feel emptier.

I didn't want to be popular because it was easier; I wanted to be popular because in high school that's the best thing you can be: perfect. Everything else is shit.

I don't like you with Becky. She's not a very nice girl.' 'I don't like you with Jake. He's not me.

If I can do things right, I don't see why everyone else can't.

I half-expect to check out, but I'm really there for it. It's not like at the dance, angry and forced. It's terrible in its gentleness and he's just wasting it on me.

I hate that I'm so numb and empty and disconnected from most of these people but even I can see worth in stupid little moments like these. These people aren't even my family, but I can see their value and if I can see it in something this small, when I feel this bad, then--- Then why didn't he?

I hate the people who live here. May Beth always told me I can't do that; I can't hate people for having more than me, but she's wrong. I can. I do.

I hope I’m the ghost that belongs to her.

Imagine 4 years. Four years, two suicides, one death, one rape, two pregnancies (one abortion), three overdoses, countless drunken antics, pantsings, spilled food, theft, fights, broken limbs, turf wars–every day, a turf war–six months until graduation and no one gets a medal when they get out. But everything you do here counts. High school.

I mean, you know how it is. You chase a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and life's never the same, no matter how many times you try to tell people it was just an accident.

I'm not here because I'm special, because I'm meant to be. It just worked out that way.

I’m sorry,” he tells me. I sit down on the bed. He returns to the view of the street below. I follow his gaze and I see the infected walking slowly back and forth. “It’s okay,” I say. “Okay,” he says. He nods. “Good.” He puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger.

I think you're crazy good at this survival stuff, Cary." His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels strange to have that kind of power over someone. "I mean, you're crazy good at it for a stoner who couldn't seem to get his shit together academically at all," I add.

I want to shove the question down his throat until he chokes on it.

I will see my father in every anger.

I wish I could break this window. Step through it. But I can't break this window. I can't even find some less dramatic way to die inside of this school, like hanging myself or slitting my wrists, because what would they do with my body? It might put everyone at risk. I won't let myself do that. I'm not selfish like Lily. I hate her. I hate her so much my heart tries to crawl out of my throat but it gets stuck there and beats crazily in the too narrow space. I bring my hands to my neck and try to massage it back down. I pres so heard against the skin, my eyes sting, and then I'm hurrying back down the stairs, back to the first floor. I think of Trace running laps, something he can control.

Mom and Dad exchange a nervous glance and have a telepathic conversation about it. I hear every word. Do we let her out? It's past curfew. True, but look at that—at least she asked! I know! I can hardly believe it! She could have sneaked out, but she asked! I know! We're good parents! "What time will you be back?" Dad asks.

My hands are dying.

Oh" She seems relieved. "So you weren't—" "Don't worry, Ms.Grey. I wasn't drinking, smoking, toking or snorting in school. I keep the recreational drug use at home where it belongs.

She always said I'd die without her and she left anyway." "But you didn't." he says. "I did," I say. "I'm just waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

She hates her heart, that misguided organ in her chest. Why didn't it warn her?

She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go?

The people feel and look the same, like they've settled here even though they know there's something more-something better-just beyond where they are. Small-town life.

There is nothing like discovering your own secrets in someone else’s story. Those thoughts and feelings you believed were too ugly or strange or idealistic or desperate or whimsical or hungry or sad they had to be just you because there could be no other place for them, anywhere. Books that make you realize you’re not alone, you never were. Those are the ones I like best.

The sooner you make a mistake and learn to live with it, the better. You're not responsible for everything. You can't control the way things end up.

Whatever's between us is that kind of new.

You know," she says. "You're still alive. I don't know how many different ways I can try to tell you before it finally sinks in.