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In one split second I saw everything I could be, everything I want to be. And all that I'm not.

Jandy Nelson

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Jandy Nelson
Age: 58
Born: 1965
Born: November 25
Writer
New York City
New York
Split
Splits
Saws
Second
Everything

More quotes by Jandy Nelson

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It’s never occurred to me that the stars are still up there shining even in the daytime when we can’t see them.
Jandy Nelson
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... if you're someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time, aren't you also someone who knows the best thing can happen at any time too?
Jandy Nelson
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This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.
Jandy Nelson
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We were all heading for each other on a collision course, no matter what. Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.
Jandy Nelson
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I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes when the grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.
Jandy Nelson
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This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever.
Jandy Nelson
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And why do English people sound smarter than the rest of us? Like they should be awarded the Nobel Prize for a simple greeting?
Jandy Nelson
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For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.
Jandy Nelson
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grief is a house that disappears each time someone knocks at the door or rings the bell a house that blows into the air at the slightest gust that buries itself deep in the ground while everyone is sleeping
Jandy Nelson
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This is it--what all the hoopla is about, what Wuthering Heights is about--it all boils down to this feeling rushing through me in this moment with Joe as our mouths refuse to part. Who knew all this time I was one kiss away from being Cathy and Juliet and Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Chatterley!?
Jandy Nelson
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The. World. Is. Not. A. Safe. Place.
Jandy Nelson
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That's exactly it—I am crazy sad, and somewhere deep inside, all I want is to fly.
Jandy Nelson
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It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was.
Jandy Nelson
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Years ago, I was crashed in gram’s garden and Big asked me what I was doing. I told him I was looking up at the sky. He said, “That’s a misconception, Lennie, the sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.
Jandy Nelson
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But then I think about my sister and what a shell-less turtle she was and how she wanted me to be one too. C'mon, Lennie, she used to say to me at least ten times a day. C'mon Len. And that makes me feel better, like it's her life rather than her death that is now teaching me how to be, who to be.
Jandy Nelson
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Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?
Jandy Nelson
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Grief is forever. It doesn't go away it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath.
Jandy Nelson
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The guy's life drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists?
Jandy Nelson
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And then he smiles, and in all the places around the globe where it's night, day breaks.
Jandy Nelson
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Take a (second or third or fourth) chance. Remake the world.
Jandy Nelson