Amy Zhang Quotes & Sayings

What isn't wrong? The world is ending. I'm not even being dramatic. The world is fucking ending. You know that, don't you? That's why you picked apocalpyses, isn't it? The bees are dying. The ozone layer has more holes than I do. Some idiot could press the wrong button tomorrow and start a nuclear war. It's just- it's a lot of stuff, Micah. And we can't really change it. Isn't that the worst part? We can't really change any of the stuff that matters. Just think about how much sleep we lost trying to fix stuff no one can ever really fix. — Amy Zhang

Gravity is our playmate, momentum is our friend. We are blurs of motion. We are racing, and we are both winning, because we do not race each other. We race the world, and as fast as it rotates, as fast as it revolves, we are faster. — Amy Zhang

But she needed ice on the roads. She needed her accident to look as accidental as possible. And she just didn't think she was capable of waiting another three months. Julia, however, knows none of this. She looks down at what remains of her best friend, and she thinks of all the times Liz was quiet and not really there. The times when she was the Liz everyone else knows, all snark and insanity, and the moments when she was the one that stared at invisible things and hadn't truly smiled in a long time. — Amy Zhang

They were catalysts, the fingers that tipped the first domino. They started things that grew into nothing things that were much greater than themselves. A touch, a nudge in the wrong direction, and everyone fell down. — Amy Zhang

Miracles do not belong to fairy tales. Miracles belong to the desperate, because only the desperate believe in bullshit. — Amy Zhang

Well, hello, darling with the ocean eyes,
How many secrets keep us apart?
A sea of poems, a field of sighs,
Can I cross and return to the start? — Amy Zhang

Purification. You burn everything, you burn and burn and burn, and you start over. — Amy Zhang

He embraced his weirdness, and it was nice. — Amy Zhang

Her mother's words echoed through her head: love you. People threw them around so easily, as if they were nothing, as if they meant nothing. — Amy Zhang

I wish second chances were real. — Amy Zhang

There are no wicked queens or vengeful sorcerers, but that doesn't mean that there aren't bad people. There are. There are some truly, truly shitty people out there. — Amy Zhang

Today the snow is white and swirling, the sky is close, and the world is so big and beautiful and infinite that we don't need to pretend. All we know is already perfect. — Amy Zhang

She would be an object in motion that would stay in motion, even if it meant flattening everything in her path. — Amy Zhang

She lives in a world made entirely of sky. — Amy Zhang

She cannot bear to catch fireflies in jars. She hates zoos. She will not let her father teach her about constellations, because she will not trap the stars. She lives in a world made entirely of sky. It is inconceivable that one day, her world will grow so dark and distant that when she raises her head, she will not be able to find it. — Amy Zhang

I am thinking about the way we love each other. I am thinking about our soul, one atom and bruised all over now that I have dragged it behind me with my muddy hands. — Amy Zhang

She finally figure out that she, Liz Emerson, was the equal and opposite reaction. She was the consequence. — Amy Zhang

It is then, when she releases her need to understand, that everything falls into place. — Amy Zhang

Newton's laws of physics can rarely be applied to the real world. There is more to life than cause and effect. Things just aren't that simple — Amy Zhang

But there was something terrifying taking over her thoughts, and it wouldn't leave. Out of seven billion sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew that she was lost. Not one of them asked. — Amy Zhang

No one's going to be at our hundred-year reunion. Hell, no one's coming back for the five-year reunion." That was probably true. — Amy Zhang

She looked around and saw all of the broken things in her wake, and then she looked inside herself ans saw the spidering cracks from the weight of all the things she had done. — Amy Zhang

They never talked about it, but they both knew what they feared. More than anything, they feared they wouldn't have each other someday. — Amy Zhang

No one is strong enough to hold back so many tears — Amy Zhang

Liz looked back and counted the bodies, all those lives she had ruined simply by existing. So she chose to stop existing. — Amy Zhang

There was a certain freedom in being on the outside. He watched instead of being watched. — Amy Zhang

I do have a heart. A big, messy, bleeding-like-a-volcano heart. If you pulled it out of my chest, it would be covered in escaped butterflies and black holes and weeds that look like flowers. — Amy Zhang

We wonder what lies beyond.
One day, she will grow up and imagine death as an angel that will lend her wings, so she can find out.
Death, unfortunately, is not in the business of lending wings. — Amy Zhang

And it was then that he began to fall in love with her for the second time... because he believed in broken things. — Amy Zhang

He leans back in his chair and just looks at it all, the final diary of a dying girl. — Amy Zhang

It wasn't the aloneness that Liz minded. It was the silence. It echoed. — Amy Zhang

If there's one person in the world you should be with, there must be one person in the world you shouldn't be with. — Amy Zhang

Funny things, aren't they? People. They only believed in what they could see. Appearances were all that mattered, and no one would ever care what she was like on the inside. No one cared that she was breaking apart. — Amy Zhang

Had the world always been like this? Why had it seemed so much kinder when she was younger? Why had it seemed beautiful? — Amy Zhang

She wasn't here to make memories. She was here for the flashing lights and the sweat and the smoke and the feel of someone else's skin against hers. — Amy Zhang

Liz was afraid of silence, and she kept her fears clenched so tightly in her fists that they grew and grew and swallowed her whole. — Amy Zhang

Some things are easier to forget than other things, I'm noticing. — Amy Zhang

I remember threading my fingers through his and pressing our life lines together — Amy Zhang

Her world was almost beautiful. She didn't care that it was false. — Amy Zhang

She wished to be happy, and fell asleep with an entire sky above her. — Amy Zhang

Sometimes they got lost. Sometimes they didn't want to be found. But it was a big forest and a bigger world, and whenever they went anywhere without each other, they left trails of stones that led all the way back to each other.

Because they loved each other with the biggest love of all. — Amy Zhang

We race the world, and as fast as it rotates, as fast at it revolves, we are faster. — Amy Zhang

Miracles do not belong to religions. Miracles belong to the desperate, which is why every religion, every philosophy, and most importantly, every fairy tale always has a moment of salvation, a eureka, an enlightenment. We are all chasing and chasing tails, running and running in circles, until a wolf or the witch or the stepmother jumps out and trips us, and we fall flat, splat, and we lie bare and bleeding and breathless and finally, finally look and see whatever it is---salvation or eureka or enlightenment or a hunter or prince or a glass slipper---in front of us. And that's what miracles are. Not solutions, but catalysts. Not answers, but chances. — Amy Zhang

Forgetting is the easy part. This should be unsurprising, but it surprises me. Forgetting was easy. Remembering is endless and it hurts, endlessly. — Amy Zhang

There had been silent tears and ones that barely leaked out. There were tears that heaved from her in great sobs. They all slipped through my fingers when I tried to catch them, and they fell around her in oceans. — Amy Zhang

She had been desperate to feel something, anything. She needed a window, because she had broken her heart throwing it at locked doors. — Amy Zhang

In that moment, Liz Emerson felt that she was forever looking up at people who were much, much better than she could ever be, and the only thing she was really good at was pulling them down to her level. — Amy Zhang

Stay alive.
But she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to. — Amy Zhang

Lesson learned: bad things happen to good people. — Amy Zhang

I don't need to keep my misanthropy in check. It runs wild. — Amy Zhang

There's more to life than cause and effect. — Amy Zhang

We are nervous laughter and fast breath and faster heartbeats, alive alive alive. — Amy Zhang

She wanted to go back. She wanted to be a little girl again, the one who thought getting high meant being pushed on the swing and pain was falling off her bike. — Amy Zhang

I watched her carve her mistakes in stone, and they arranged themselves around her. They became a maze with walls that reached the sky. Because she learned from so few of them, she was lost. Because she didn't have faith in anything, she didn't try to find a way out. I watched her try to face her fears alone, too proud to ask for help, too stubborn to admit she was afraid, too small to fight them, too tired to fly away. — Amy Zhang

If she loved them, if she loved anything, it was because it burned. — Amy Zhang

She is human and bound by the same laws of nature - gravity, in particular - as everyone else. Try as she might, she will never grow wings. — Amy Zhang

I could understand a world where she was in Nepal, though I couldn't figure out why she didn't text me back. I could understand a world where she was distant but not lost. I couldn't understand a world without her. — Amy Zhang

Micah lives like an apology. He blushes when he breathes because he's taking someone else's air. It's like all Micah wants is to disappear, and he thinks if he's quiet enough, if he keeps his eyes on the ground and barely breathes and treads lightly, people will forget he exists. — Amy Zhang

Because Liz Emerson held so much darkness within her that closing her eyes didn't make much of a difference at all. — Amy Zhang

We fall asleep to fairy tales, and the world rotates and revolves and time passes and we grow up and we understand that they are false. There are not heroes and princesses and villains. It's not that easy. — Amy Zhang

The world is so big and beautiful and infinite that we don't need to pretend — Amy Zhang

In this moment, she realizes what death really means. It means that she will never catch them. — Amy Zhang

Without each other, there wouldn't be much of a point, would there? — Amy Zhang

Drowned out by the sound of his heart throwing itself against his ribcage. — Amy Zhang

Liz Emerson held so much darkness within her that closing her eyes didn't make much a difference at all. — Amy Zhang

I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze my rocks and wonder if there is a word for the marks you get on your palm when you squeeze something so hard that the skin is on the verge of ripping. — Amy Zhang

On the first day of fifth grade, Liz was sitting on the swing beside Liam's at recess. Falling and flying, her hair fanned out behind her and her eyes were closed, and that was what had caught his attention, her closed eyes. She looked a little bit silly and very much alive, and Liam couldn't stop watching.

Liz, on her part, was aware that the boy beside her was watching, but she loved swinging too much to care what he thought. She loved the wind hitting her face and the brief moment of suspension at the top of the arc and the falling sensation that was magnified by the darkness of her eyelids. She imagined that she was a bird, an angel, a wayward star.

At the height of the arc, she let go. And she flew.

Liam watched with his mouth hanging wide open, expecting her to crumple on the asphalt and die tragically before his eyes.

She didn't, and when she walked away, Liam's heart followed. — Amy Zhang

She wanted to be a little girl again, the one who thought getting high meant being pushed on the swings and pain was falling off her bike — Amy Zhang

Life is messy and the universe has an awful lot of people to keep track of. Sometimes things get screwed up. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good things happen to bad people.
That isn't fair.
Bad things should happen to bad people.
And they will. They will. — Amy Zhang

She was insane, and this was Janie. This was the Janie who loved fire and carried rocks. This was the Janie Vivian who trusted rarely but deeply, and hoped with everything she was. This was the Janie Vivian, who I had loved with every atom in every cell in my body before memory was relevant. — Amy Zhang

And suddenly it's very clear to her that every action is an interaction, and everything she has ever done has led to something else, and to another something else, and all of that is ending here, at the bottom of the hill by Highway 34, and she is dying. — Amy Zhang

Some people die because the world does not deserve them. Liz Emerson on the other hand, did not deserve the world. — Amy Zhang

Whatever you do, whatever you redo, it all ends up here. Some things are just unavoidable. No matter how hard you try, the things meant to go to shit still go to shit. Terrible things happen, Micah, and you can't stop them. You just can't."

So you just do more terrible things. — Amy Zhang

Please," he whispers. "remember the sky. — Amy Zhang

Out of the seven billion people sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew she was lost. Not one of them asked. — Amy Zhang

He is rainwater and smoke and wishes. He is honey and wind and bitter as truth and sharp with hurting and endlessly, unbearably sweet. He is air, finally, endlessly — Amy Zhang

She was tired. Gravity pulled at her more aggressively than usual. When she closed her eyes, she could feel it, dragging her deeper, deeper. I would have pulled her back. I would have saved her from falling, but she didn't see my hand. — Amy Zhang

We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that's not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn't stay that way. — Amy Zhang

She knew so many people so many but what was the point? How many of them did she really care about? How many of them really cared about her? — Amy Zhang

How many times can a person explode? — Amy Zhang

You have to understand yourself before you can understand anything else. — Amy Zhang

That's what high school's for. You make plans and you don't follow through. You dream and you can be brave when you're dreaming, brave enough to imagine that there's actually a yourself to find, brave enough to finish projects even though you were never born with endings, brave enough to plan volunteer trips even though you'd probably be dead of asphyxiation by the time you're there because you're always holding your breath as if that can keep you together. — Amy Zhang

Like I said, the world isn't always fair, and sometimes we have to help it along. — Amy Zhang

There are things worth dying for. — Amy Zhang

subsequently sentenced to five minutes on the Wall. — Amy Zhang

When I crash, I will be inertia mass acceleration force gravity opposite equal everything. I will be nothing. — Amy Zhang

it's never too late to change. Every day is a blank page, and your story has yet to be written. — Amy Zhang

That's the truth, I guess. We don't catch moments in the passing. We don't catch them at all. We just reach and scramble and wish for fairy godmothers and Prince Charmings. It's too bad none of it is real. It really is too bad. — Amy Zhang

I used to think that destiny was fluid, because isn't that the point of every Disney movie and Saturday-morning cartoon? You make your own choices. You decide how life goes. I always thought that your fate line would change if something happened, bam, something goes wrong and the line on your palm goes all wonky to reflect that. Nope. It still looks fine. — Amy Zhang

I like water, though. I like the way it waits, and when you touch it, it both moves away and clings to your finger. I like the way it rises, like memory, or fear. — Amy Zhang