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“His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.”
― Lauren Oliver

“I don't know how i stay on my feet, why i don;t just shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when i want it so badly to stop”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“

“Would you like to?�� he says. His voice is hardly audible above the wind—so low it’s barely a whisper.

“Would I like to what?�� My heart is roaring, rushing in my ears, and though there are still several inches between his hand and mine, there’s a zipping, humming energy that connects us, and from the heat flooding my body you would think we were pressed together, palm to palm, face to face.

“Dance,�� he says, at the same time closing those last few inches and finding my hand and pulling me closer, and at that second the song hits a high note and I confuse the two impressions, of his hand and the soaring, the lifting of the music.

We dance.

”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“You don’t have to be worried, okay? You don’t have to be scared.�� His voice is twinkling again. “I’m not flirting with you.��
Embarrassment sweeps through me. Flirting. A dirty word. He thinks I think he’s flirting. “I’m not—I don’t think you were—I would never think that you—�� The words collide in my mouth, and now I know there’s no amount of darkness that can cover the rush of red to my face.
He cocks his head to the side. “Are you flirting with me, then?��
“What? No,�� I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a panic, and I realize I don’t even know what flirting is. I just know about it from textbooks; I just know that it’s bad. Is it possible to flirt without knowing you’re flirting? Is he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“That was the first time my world exploded.
The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it, or stop it.
The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow?
And the word was: Yes.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I’m frightened. This is how it starts. Even if he is cured, even if he is safe—the fact is, I’m not safe, and this is how it starts. Phase One: preoccupation; difficulty focusing; dry mouth; perspiration; sweaty palms; dizziness and disorientation. I feel a rushing blend of sickness and relief, a feeling like find out that everyone actually knows your worst secret, has known all along. All this time Aunt Carol was right, my teachers were right, my cousins were right. I’m just like my mother, after all. And the thing, the disease, is inside of me, ready at any moment to start working on my insides, to start poisoning me.
“I have to go.�� I start up the hill again, nearly sprinting now, but again he comes after me.
“Hey. Not so fast.�� At the top of the hill he reaches out and puts a hand on my wrist to stop me. His touch burns, and I jerk away quickly. “Lena. Hold on a second.��
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I stop. It’s the way he says my name: like music.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I thought you were dead,�� I say. “It almost killed me.��
“Did it?�� His voice is neutral. “You made a pretty fast recovery.��
“No. You don’t understand.�� My throat is tight; I feel as though I’m being strangled. “I couldn’t keep hoping, and then waking up every day and finding out it wasn’t true, and you were still gone. I—I wasn’t strong enough.��
He is quiet for a second. It’s too dark to see his expression: He is standing in shadow again, but I can sense that he is staring at me.
Finally he says, “When they took me to the Crypts, I thought they were going to kill me. They didn’t even bother. They just left me to die. They threw me in a cell and locked the door.��
“Alex.�� The strangled feeling has moved from my throat to my chest, and without realizing it, I have begun to cry. I move toward him. I want to run my hands through his hair and kiss his forehead and each of his eyelids and take away the memory of what he has seen. But he steps backward, out of reach.
“I didn’t die. I don’t know how. I should have. I’d lost plenty of blood. They were just as surprised as I was. After that it became a kind of game—to see how much I could stand. To see how much they could do to me before I’d—��
He breaks off abruptly. I can’t hear any more; don’t want to know, don’t want it to be true, can’t stand to think of what they did to him there. I take another step forward and reach for his chest and shoulders in the dark. This time, he doesn’t push me away. But he doesn’t embrace me either. He stands there, cold, still, like a statue.
“Alex.�� I repeat his name like a prayer, like a magic spell that will make everything okay again. I run my hands up his chest and to his chin. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.��
Suddenly he jerks backward, simultaneously finding my wrists and pulling them down to my sides. “There were days I would rather they have killed me.�� He doesn’t drop my wrists; he squeezes them tightly, pinning my arms, keeping me immobilized. His voice is low, urgent, and so full of anger it pains me even more than his grip. “There were days I asked for it—prayed for it when I went to sleep. The belief that I would see you again, that I could find you—the hope for it—was the only thing that kept me going.�� He releases me and takes another step backward. “So no. I don’t understand.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“Alex, please.��
He balls his fists. “Stop saying my name. You don’t know me anymore.��
“I do know you.�� I’m still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard—��
“Don’t,�� he says. His voice breaks on the word.
“And I always beat you in Scrabble,�� I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. “Because you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them—��
���Dz�’t.��
“And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.�� I’m gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I’m reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar.
“Stop.�� He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. “Just stop. No more. It’s done, okay? That’s all done now.��
“Alex, please—��
“Stop!�� His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.��
“A�����!��
He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.��
The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.�� I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak.
He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.��
“Please.�� I don’t know how I stay on my feet, why I don’t shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. “Please don’t do this, Alex.��
“Stop saying my name.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“I want to apologize to you,�� she says calmly.
“Oh yeah? For what?�� I don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She’ll be here, in the house . . .
My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I’m worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn’t my concern, and it isn’t my fault, either.
“For telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,�� she says. “For telling them about you and Alex.��
Just like that, my brain powers down. “What?"
“I told them.�� She lets out a tiny exhalation, as though saying the words has given her relief. “I’m sorry. I was jealous.��
I can’t speak. I’m swimming through a fog. “Jealous?�� I manage to spit out.
“I—I wanted what you had with Alex. I was confused. I didn’t understand what I was doing.�� She shakes her head again.
I have a swinging, seasick feeling. It doesn’t make any sense. Hana—golden girl Hana, my best friend, fearless and reckless. I trusted her. I loved her. “You were my best friend.��
“I know.�� Again she looks troubled, as though trying to recall the meaning of the words.
“You had everything.�� I can’t stop my voice from rising. The anger is vibrating, ripping through me like a live current. “Perfect life. Perfect grades. Everything.�� I gesture to the spotless kitchen, to the sunshine pouring over the marble counters like drizzled butter. “I had nothing. He was my one thing. My only—�� The sickness surges up and I take a step forward, clenching my fists, blind with rage. “Why couldn’t you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“Is it true?�� I ask him.
“Is what true?�� His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.
“That you still love me,�� I say, breathless. “I need to know.��
Alex nods. He reaches out and touches my face—barely skimming my cheekbone and brushing away a bit of my hair. “It’s true.��
“But . . . I’ve changed,�� I say. “And you’ve changed.��
“That’s true too,�� he says quietly. I look at the scar on his face, stretching from his left eye to his jawline, and something hitches in my chest.
“So what now?�� I ask him. The light is too bright; the day feels as though it’s merging into dream.
“Do you love me?�� Alex asks. And I could cry; I could press my face into his chest and breathe in, and pretend that nothing has changed, that everything will be perfect and whole and healed again.
But I can’t. I know I can’t.
“I never stopped.�� I look away from him. I look at Grace, and the high grass littered with the wounded and the dead. I think of Julian, and his clear blue eyes, his patience and goodness. I think of all the fighting we’ve done, and all the fighting we have yet to do. I take a deep breath. “But it’s more complicated than that.��
Alex reaches out and places his hands on my shoulders. “I’m not going to run away again,�� he says.
“I don’t want you to,�� I tell him.
His fingers find my cheek, and I rest for a second against his palm, letting the pain of the past few months flow out of me, letting him turn my head toward his. Then he bends down and kisses me: light and perfect, his lips just barely meeting mine, a kiss that promises renewal.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“You can’t cheat if there are no rules”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“She'll be fine," Alex says dismissively, as though I shouldn't worry about it—as though it's none of my concern. I have the sudden urge to kick him in the back of his head. He is kneeling in front of Lena, dabbing antibacterial cream on her leg. I'm mesmerized by the way his fingers move confidently along her skin, as though her body is his to treat and touch and tend to. She was mine before she was yours: The words are there, unexpectedly, surging from my throat to my tongue. I swallow them back.”
― Lauren Oliver, Hana

“I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Then someone knocks on the door, very clearly, four times. I pull away from Lena quickly.
"What's that?" I say, dragging my forearm across my eyes, trying to get control of myself. Lena tries to pass it off as though she hadn't heard. Her face has gone white, her eyes wide and terrified. When the knocking starts up again, she doesn't move, just stays frozen where she is.
"I thought nobody comes in this way." I cross my arms, watching Lena narrowly. There's a suspicious needling, pricking at some corner of my mind, but I can't quite focus on it.
"They don't. I mean—sometimes—I mean, the delivery guys��"
As she stammers excuses, the door opens, and he pokes his head in—the boy from the day Lena and I jumped the gate at the lab complex, just after we had our evaluations. His eyes land on me and he, too, freezes.
At first I think there must be a mistake. He must have knocked on the wrong door. Lena will yell at him now, tell him to clear off. But then my mind grinds slowly into gear and I realize that no, he has just called Lena's name. This was obviously planned.”
― Lauren Oliver, Hana

“All I can think is: I need air. The rest of my thoughts are a blur of radio static and fluorescent lights and lab coats and steel tables and surgical knives”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I feel as though I’m in a dream, where strange things are happening but they don’t feel strange. Everything is cloudy—everything is wrapped in a fog—and I’m filled from head to toe with the single, burning desire to get closer to the music, to hear the music better, for the music to go on and on and on.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Hana starts off down the road. I’m tempted to watch her go. I get the urge to memorize her walk—to imprint her in my brain somehow, just as she is—but as I’m watching her waver in and out of the fierce sunlight, her silhouette gets confused with another one in my head, a shadow weaving in and out of darkness, about to walk off the cliff, and I don’t know who I’m looking at anymore.

Suddenly the edges of the world are blurring and there’s a sharp pain in my throat, so I turn around and walk quickly toward the house.

“Lena!�� she calls out to me, just before I reach the gate.

I spin around, heart leaping, thinking maybe she’ll be the one to say it. I miss you. Let’s go back.

Even from a distance of fifty feet, I can see Hana hesitating. Then she makes this fluttering gesture with her hand and calls out, “Never mind.�� This time when she turns around she doesn’t waver. She walks straight and quickly, turns a corner, and is gone.

But what did I expect?

That’s the whole point, after all: There’s no going back.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“When I can no longer go forward, even by an inch, I lay my head on the ground and wait to die. I’m too tired to be frightened. Above me is blackness, and all around me is blackness, and the forest sounds are a symphony to sing me out of this world. I am already at my funeral.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

“I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my beautiful, big-eyed girls. But I worry about Rachel less. Rachel was always harder than Lena, somehow. More defiant, more stubborn, less feeling . Even as a girl, she frightened me—fierce and fiery-eyed, with a temper like my father’s once was.
But Lena . . . little darling Lena, with her tangle of dark hair and her flushed, chubby cheeks. She used to rescue spiders from the pavement to keep them from getting squashed; quiet, thoughtful Lena, with the sweetest lisp to break your heart. To break my heart: my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. I wonder whether her front teeth still overlap; whether she still confuses the words pretzel and pencil occasionally; whether the wispy brown hair grew straight and long, or began to curl.
I wonder whether she believes the lies they told her.”
― Lauren Oliver, Annabel

“Hana’s voice is completely toneless. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. But she is lucky, whether she knows it or not.

And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.

You came from different starts and you’ll come to different ends : That’s an old saying, something Carol used to repeat a lot. I never really understood how true it was until now.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I feel a pang of guilt. I’ve obviously been given the nicest bed, and the nicest room. It still amazes me to think how wrong I was all those years, when I trusted in rumors and lies. I thought the Invalids were beasts; I thought they would rip me apart. But these people saved me, and gave me the softest place to sleep, and nursed me back to health, and haven’t asked for anything in return.

The animals are on the other side of the fence: monsters wearing uniforms. They speak softly, and tell lies, and smile as they’re slitting your throat.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

“They couldn’t have known that even this was a lie—that we never really choose, not entirely. We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven’t chosen at all.
But maybe happiness isn’t in the choosing. Maybe it’s in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“With the same people who had never dreamed their way out of here.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?"
That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here—solid, real, on my side—makes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick”
― Lauren Oliver, Hana

“I came to find you last night," Lena says more quietly. "When I knew there was going to be a raid...I snuck out. I was there when—when the regulators came. I barely made it out. Alex helped me. We hid in a shed until they were gone..."
I close my eyes and reopen them. I remember wiggling into the damp earth, bumping my hip against the window. I remember standing, and seeing the dark forms of bodies lying like shadows in the grass, and the sharp geometry of a small she shed, nestled in the trees.
Lena was there. It was almost unimaginable.
"I can't believe that. I can't believe you snuck out during a raid—for me." My throat feels thick again, and I will myself not to start crying. For a moment I am overwhelmed by a feeling so huge and strange, I have no name for it: It surges over the guilt and the shock and the envy; it plunges a hand into the deepest part of myself and roots me to Lena.”
― Lauren Oliver, Hana

“For the first time in a long time, I actually look at her. I've always thought Lena was pretty, but now it occurs to me that at some point—last summer? last year?—she became beautiful. Her eyes seem to have grown even larger, and her cheekbones have sharpened. Her lips, on the other hand, look softer and fuller.
I've never felt ugly next to Lena, but suddenly I do. I feel tall and ugly and bony, like a straw-colored horse.”
― Lauren Oliver, Hana

“You’re angry at me,�� she says.
I stop crying at once. My whole body goes cold and still. She squats down beside me, and even though I’m careful not to look up, not to look at her at all, I can feel her, can smell the sweat from her skin and hear the ragged pattern of her breathing.
“You’re angry at me,�� she repeats, and her voice hitches a little. “You think I don’t care.��
Her voice is the same. For years I used to imagine that voice lilting over those forbidden words: I love you. Remember. They cannot take it. Her last words to me before she went away.
She shuffles forward and squats next to me. She hesitates, then reaches out and places her palm against my cheek, and turns my head toward hers so I’m forced to look at her. I can feel the calluses on her fingers.
In her eyes, I see myself reflected in miniature, and I tunnel back to a time before she left, before I believed she was gone forever, when her eyes welcomed me into every day and shepherded me, every night, into sleep.
“You turned out even more beautiful than I’d imagined,�� she whispers. She, too, is crying.
The hard casement inside me breaks.
“Why?�� is the only word that comes. Without intending to or even thinking about it, I allow her to draw me against her chest, let her wrap her arms around me. I cry into the space between her collarbones, inhaling the still-familiar smell of her skin.
There are so many things I need to ask her: What happened to you in the Crypts? How could you let them take you away? Where did you go? But all I can say is: “Why didn’t you come for me? After all those years—all that time—why didn’t you come?�� Then I can’t speak at all; my sobs become shudders.
“Shhh.�� She presses her lips to my forehead, strokes my hair, just like she used to when I was a child. I am a baby once again in her arms—helpless and needy. “I’m here now.��
She rubs my back while I cry. Slowly, I feel the darkness drain out of me, as though pulled away by the motion of her hand. Finally I can breathe again. My eyes are burning, and my throat feels raw and sore. I draw away from her, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, not even caring that my nose is running. I’m suddenly exhausted—too tired to be hurt, too tired to be angry. I want to sleep, and sleep.
“I never stopped thinking about you,�� my mother says. “I thought of you every day—you and Rachel.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“I’m used to a feeling of doubleness, of thinking one thing and having to do another, a constant tug-of-war. But somehow Hana has fallen cleanly away into the double half, the other world, the world of unmentionable thoughts and things and people.

Is it possible that all this time I’ve been living my life, studying for tests, taking long runs with Hana—and this other world has just existed, running alongside and underneath mine, alive, ready to sneak out of the shadows and the alleyways as soon as the sun goes down? Illegal parties, unapproved music, people touching one another with no fear of the disease, with no fear for themselves.

A world without fear. Impossible.

And even though I’m standing in the middle of the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in my life, I suddenly feel very alone.”
― Lauren Oliver

“It’s okay if you can’t. No worries. Just an idea,�� I say quickly, looking away so she won’t see how disappointed I am.

“No—I mean, I want to, but—�� Hana sucks in a breath. I hate this, hate how awkward we both are. “I kind of have this party”—she corrects herself quickly��

“this thing I’m supposed to go to with Angelica Marston.��

My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It’s amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. [...]

A rush of hatred overwhelms me. Hatred for my life, for its narrowness and cramped spaces; hatred for Angelica Marston, with her secretive smile and rich parents; hatred for Hana, for being so stupid and careless and stubborn, first and foremost, and for leaving me behind before I was ready to be left; and underneath all those layers something else, too, some white-hot blade of unhappiness flashing in the very deepest part of me. I can’t name it, or even focus on it clearly, but somehow I understand that this—this other thing—makes me the angriest of all. [...]

Despite everything, this gives me pause. In the days after the party at Roaring Brook Farms, snatches of music seemed to follow me everywhere: I heard it winging in and out of the wind, I heard it singing off the ocean and moaning through the walls of the house. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding, with the notes sounding in my ears. But every time I was awake and trying to remember the melodies consciously, hum a few notes or recall any of the chords, I couldn’t.

Hana’s staring at me hopefully, waiting for my response. For a second I actually feel bad for her. I want to make her happy, like I always did, want to see her give a whoop and put her fist in the air and flash me one of her famous smiles. But then I remember she has Angelica Marston now, and something hardens in my throat, and knowing that I’m going to disappoint her gives me a kind of dull satisfaction.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“The smile disappears just like that, like a candle being snuffed out. For a second she looks almost angry. [...]

For a moment she stands there. Then she turns around. She is holding the lantern low so her face is in darkness. Her eyes are two bare reflections, glittering, like black stones in the moonlight.

“You might as well get used to it now,�� she says with quiet intensity. “Everything you were, the life you had, the people you knew �� dust.�� She shakes her head and says, a little more firmly, “There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium