Jay Asher Quotes

93 Sourced Quotes

Because when you're posed, you know someone's watching. You put on your very best smile. You let your sweetest personality shine.

Jay Asher
Don't give up on me now. I'm sorry. I guess that's an odd thing to say. Because isn't that what I'm doing? Giving up?

Jay Asher
We all know the sound a camera makes when it snaps a picture. Even some of the digitals do it for nostalgia's sake.

Jay Asher
I could picture life—school and everything else—continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn't imagine who would attend or what they would say.

Jay Asher
I decided to find out how people at school might react if one of the students never came back.

Jay Asher
It's hard to be disappointed when what you expected turns out to be true.

Jay Asher
I hate not knowing what to believe anymore. I hate not knowing what's real.

Jay Asher
And what about you-the rest of you-did you notice the scars you left behind? No. Probably not. Because most of them can't be seen with the naked eye.

Jay Asher
You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have is...now.

Jay Asher
We didn't get that chance because I was afraid. Afraid I had no chance with you.

Jay Asher
Then come to realize that you're making mountains out of molehills. Realize how petty you've become. Sure, it may feel like you can't get a grip on this town. It may seem that every time someone offers you a hand up, they just let go and you slip further down. But you must stop being so pessimistic, Hannah, and learn to trust those around you. So I do. One more time.

Jay Asher
That's when I said it. That's when I whispered to her, I'm so sorry. Because inside, I felt so happy and sad at the same time. Sad that it took me so long to get there. But happy that we got there together.

Jay Asher
I'm listening to someone give up. Someone I knew—someone I liked. I'm listening... but still, I'm too late.

Jay Asher
That's what I love about poetry. The more abstract, the better. The stuff where you're not sure what the poet's talking about. You may have an idea, but you can't be sure. Not a hundred percent. Each word, specifically chosen, could have a million different meanings.

Jay Asher
If you're angry, you don't have to write a poem dealing with the cause of your anger. But it needs to be an angry poem. So go ahead... write one. I know you're at least a little bit angry with me. And when you're done with your poem, decipher it as if you'd just found it printed in a textbook and know absolutely nothing about its author. The results can be amazing...and scary. But it's always cheaper than a therapist.

Jay Asher
Maybe it's not as important to you as it was for me, but that's not for you to decide.

Jay Asher
I didn't humiliate him by pointing it out because that's not how you treat friends. You don't judge them. You don't humiliate them. I bet he's been judging me all along.

Jay Asher
Maybe you didn't know what people thought of you because they themselves didn't know what they thought of you. Maybe you didn't give us enough to go on, Hannah.

Jay Asher
No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.

Jay Asher
When you hold people up for ridicule, you have to take responsibility when other people act on it.

Jay Asher
Why does it say she has three hundred and twenty friends?" Josh asks. "Who has that many friends?

Jay Asher
I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.

Jay Asher
You don't know what goes on in anyone's life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person's life, you're not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can't be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person's life, you're messing with their entire life. Everything... affects everything.

Jay Asher
Watching those guys pummel each other so no one would suspect them of being weak was too much for me. Their reputations were more important than their faces.

Jay Asher
I didn't feel physically sick. But mentally. My mind was twisting in so many ways. (...) We once saw a documentary on migraines. One of the men interviewed used to fall on his knees and bang his head against the floor, over and over during attacks. This diverted the pain from deep inside his brain, where he couldn't reach it, to a pain outside that he had control over.

Jay Asher