Lauren Oliver - Before I Fall (2010)

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I get that rush that comes when you know you're doing something wrong and are getting away with it, like stealing from the school cafeteria of getting tipsy at a family holiday without anyone knowing it.

Lauren Oliver
My boyfriend's an idiot," I say as soon as he lurches away."A cute idiot," Ally corrects me."That's like saying 'a cute mutant.' Doesn't exist.

Lauren Oliver
The worst is knowing I can't tell anybody what's happening -or what's happened- to me. Not even my mom.

Lauren Oliver
The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.

Lauren Oliver
The thing is, you don't get to know. It's not like you wake up with a bad feeling in your stomach. You don't see shadows where there shouldn't be any. You don't remember to tell your parents you love them or—in my case—remember to say good-bye to them at all.

Lauren Oliver
That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which.

Lauren Oliver
Popularity's a weird thing. You can't really define it, and it's not cool to talk about, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn.

Lauren Oliver
I know some of you are Thinking maybe I deserved it. But before you start pointing Fringers, let me ask you Is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that? Is what I did really much worse Then what anybody else does? Is it really so much worse Than what you do?

Lauren Oliver
Most of the time one night blends into the next and weeks blend into weeks and months into other months. And sooner or later we all die. But at the beginning of the night anything's possible.

Lauren Oliver
I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.

Lauren Oliver
A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.

Lauren Oliver
It's the time of the night I like best, when most people are asleep and it feels like the world belongs completely to my friends and me, as though nothing exists apart from out little circle: everywhere else is darkness and quiet.

Lauren Oliver
This is pretty much the answer to every problem you encounter in suburbia: plant a tree, and hope you don't see anyone's privates.

Lauren Oliver
Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.

Lauren Oliver
Somewhere in the endless spinning of eternity that one, tiny, fraction of a second where our lips met is lost forever.

Lauren Oliver
Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.

Lauren Oliver
I've never really thought about it before, but it's a miracle how many kinds of light there are in the world, how many skies: the pale brightness of spring, when it feels like the hole world's blushing; the lush, bright boldness of a July noon; purple storm skies and a green queasiness just before lightning strikes and crazy multicolored sunsets that look like someone's acid trip.

Lauren Oliver
Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through you fingers. So much time you can waste it. But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.

Lauren Oliver
It's like high school holds two different worlds, revolving around each other an never touching; the haves and the have-nots. I guess it's a good thing. High school is supposed to prepare you for the real world, after all.

Lauren Oliver
I'm not scared, if that's what you're wondering. The moment of death is full of sound and warmth and light shooting away, arcing up and up and up, and if singing were a feeling it would be this, this light, this lifting, like laughing... The rest you have to find out for yourself.

Lauren Oliver
Fridays are the hardest in some ways: you're so close to freedom.

Lauren Oliver
It's Connecticut: being like the people around you is the whole point.

Lauren Oliver
Mistake, mistake, mistake. A strange word: stinging, somehow.

Lauren Oliver
That's my favorite thing about him. I like to lie next to him when it's late, dark, and so quiet I can hear my own heartbeat. It's times like that when I'm sure that I'm in love.

Lauren Oliver
The sun has just risen, weak and watery-looking, like it had just spilled itself over the horizon and is too lazy to clean itself up.

Lauren Oliver
I loved to be alone in the woods, especially in the late fall when everything is crisp and golden, the leaves the color of fire, and it smells like things turning into earth. I loved the silence - the only sound the steady drum of the hooves and the horse's breathing.

Lauren Oliver
Fourth period I have "life skills", which is what they call gym when you're old enough to be offended by forced physical activity (Elody thinks they should call it slavery instead, for accuracy).

Lauren Oliver
Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even /think/ the word — death? Dying? Dead? Do you think I was being stupid? Naive? Try not to judge. Remember that we're the same, you and me. I thought I would live forever too.

Lauren Oliver