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“My voice softens. 'How old are you?'
'I'll be eleven next year.'
I grin. 'So you're ten years old?'
He crosses his arms. Frowns. 'I'll be twelve in two years.'
I think I already love this kid.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They've known each other since childhood...â€�..The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn't matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions - Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.


- Delalieu”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“You sick piece of shit," Adam says to him, his voice low, measured.
"Such unfortunate language." Warner shakes his head. "Only those who cannot express themselves intelligently would resort to such crude substitutions in vocabulary.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I love you, Ella. I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart is yours. Please don't ever give it back to me.

- Warner”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“You allow the world to think you're a heartless murderer," I tell him. "And you're not."

He laughs, once; his eyebrows lifting in surprise. "No," he says. "I'm afraid I'm just the regular kind of murderer.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I have a heart, says science, but I am a monster, says society.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“We are synonyms but not the same.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I am so tired, love.I'm so very,very tired.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Stop.
Stop time.
Stop the world.
Stop everything for the moment he crosses the room and pulls me into his arms and pins me against the wall and I'm spinning and standing and not even breathing but I'm alive so very very alive.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“If you hide your heart, he will never be able to take it from you.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Hang tight
Hold on
Look up
Stay strong
Hang on
Hold tight
Look strong
Stay up
One day I might break
One day I might
b r e a k
free”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I've finally gotten to a point in my life where I'm not afraid to speak. Where my shadow no longer haunts me. And I don't want to lose that freedom--not again. I can't go backward. I'd rather be shot dead screaming for justice than die alone in a prison of my own making.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I can't remember a single time in my life when someone apologized to me for hurting my feelings. No one has ever cared about my feelings long enough to apologize for hurting them. In my experience, I'm usually the monster. I'm the one expected to make amends.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend," he says. "The one who will memorise the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette-”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I sigh. "I don't know what's happening to me."
"They're called hormones."

I shoot him a dirty look. "I'm serious."

"Me too." He cocks his head at me. "That's like, biological and shit. Scientific. Maybe your lady bits are scientifically confused."

"My lady bits?"

"Oh, I'm sorry" - Kenji pretends to look offended - "would you rather I use the proper anatomical terminology? Because you lady bits do not scare me-"
"Yeah, no thanks.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“So, let me get this straight," Winston says. "Our plan is basically seduce the soldiers and civilians of Sector 45 into fighting with us?"

Kenji crossed his arms. "Yeah, it sounds like we're going to go all peacock and hope they find us attractive enough to mate with."

"Gross," Brendan frowns.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I would rather be dead, than go back to being silent and suffocated.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“In this new, turbulent reality, the one person I recognize is him. My memories of him - memories of us - have done something to me. I've changed somewhere deep inside. I feel different. Heavier, like my feet have been more firmly planted, liberated by certainty, free to grow roots here in my own self, free to trust unequivocally in the strength and steadiness of my own heart. It's an empowering discovery, to find that I can trust myself - even when I'm not myself - to make the right choices. To know for certain now that there was at least one mistake I never made.

Aaron Warner Anderson is the only emotional through line in my life that ever made sense. He's the only constant. The only steady, reliable heartbeat I've ever had.

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron.

I had no idea how much we'd lost, no idea how much of him I'd longed for. I had no idea how desperately we'd been fighting. How many years we'd fought for moments - minutes - to be together.

It fills me with a painful kind of joy.

- Ella”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. you can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough, never enough never ever enough .”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“He and I would end up like water going nowhere. Water that never moves-- It's fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it'll sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic.

I need waves. I need waterfalls. I want rushing currents.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“i'm always apologizing. forever apologizing. for who i am and what i never meant to be and for this body i was born into, this DNA i never asked for, this person i can't unbecome.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I never even tried. Because I let the world teach me to hate myself. I was a coward who needed someone else to tell me I was worth something before I took any steps to save myself.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“We don’t have to do anything at all to die.
We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. It will erase every trace of our existence on this earth and it will do all this work for free. It will ask for nothing in return. It will take a bow at our funeral and accept the accolades for a job well done and then it will disappear.
Living is a little more complex. There’s one thing we always have to do.
Breathe.
In and out, every single day in every hour minute and moment we must inhale whether we like it or not. Even as we plan to asphyxiate our hopes and dreams still we breathe. Even as we wither away and sell our dignity to the man on the corner we breathe. We breathe when we’re wrong, we breathe when we’re right, we breathe even as we slip off the ledge toward an early grave. It cannot be undone.
So I breathe.
I count all the steps I’ve climbed toward the noose hanging from the ceiling of my existence and I count out the number of times I’ve been stupid and I run out of numbers.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes it just won't let go”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“I’m sorry I ever asked you guys to be friends. You don’t have to be friends. You don’t even have to like each other. Forget I said anything.â€�
Warner drops his crossed arms.
Kenji raises his eyebrows.
“I promise,� I say. “No more forced hangout sessions. No more spending time alone without me. Okay?�
“You swear?� Kenji says.
“I swear.�
“Thank God,� Warner says.
“Same, bro. Same.�
And I roll my eyes, irritated. This is the first thing they’ve managed to agree on in over a week: their mutual hatred of my hopes for their friendship.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“The destruction of the world didn’t happen overnight, and neither will saving it,”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“Forgive me. I know it all seems stupid now, but I don't want to take anything for granted anymore. Forgive me for hurting you. Forgive me for not trusting you. I took my pain out on you and I'm so sorry. I was selfish, and I hurt you, and I'm so sorry.

- Ella”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“its like a button in my brain is broken, like i've developed a disease that forces me to apologize for everything, for existing, for wanting more than what i've been given, and i can't stop.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“For so many years I thought my life was difficult; I thought I understood what it meant to suffer. But this. This is something I can’t even begin to comprehend. I never stopped to consider that someone else might have it worse than I do.
It makes me feel ashamed for ever having felt sorry for myself.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I lived in a really dark place. I wasn't safe in my own mind. I woke up every morning hoping to die and then spent the rest of the day wondering if maybe I was already dead because I couldn't even tell the difference.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me