Carrie Ryan Quotes & Sayings

I let the sobs overtake me then. This was not the way I imagined my life. — Carrie Ryan

Rage is a powerful emotion, strong enough not just to burn away pain but also to sear back the whispering tendrils of fear. — Carrie Ryan

how it can be that I have lost everything in my life but this journey. This hope that there is an end. — Carrie Ryan

Libby is none of those things. At least not the Libby I've become. She's crafted and honed for this one purpose, forged by misery and rage, until every raw edge was seared away. — Carrie Ryan

Ever since that first day on the beach, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you." A burst of warmth breaks free low in my abdomen. "And then later," he continues, "when you were in the pool, drifting just out of reach." His fingers dance along my hip toward my back, setting me on fire from the outside in.
I press my palms flat against the door behind me, needing to feel something but afraid to reach for him. His head drops lower and for a moment I think he's about to finally kiss me. But instead he shifts, bringing his lips slowly to my ear. "Do you know how many times I've imagined what would have happened if I'd just gone in after you? — Carrie Ryan

I stomp through the water in a tight circle, kicking against the salt spray, wanting to pull the world apart piece by piece. — Carrie Ryan

When you're young you have such expectations of each other. So many needs. And when you're older ... " He shrugs. "You want someone who understands. We've lived different lives. We've loved different people. But I think that there will always be that ... " He struggles for the right word. "That understanding we share. Of having grown up in the same world, of having live through the same memories. — Carrie Ryan

She prays to God, but He's silent. She searches for guidance, but the forest only moans. — Carrie Ryan

You know how you can think you know someone or think you know them but maybe you only know them one way?" He sneaks a glance at me and I notice that his cheeks are red in the moonlight. "Maybe you know someone as your little sister's friend," he says. "And then maybe something shifts. Maybe one day you hear them say something unexpected. Or hear the way they laugh and then suddenly you see them all over again. Like this time it's different. This time maybe you see them as ... " He pauses. "Beautiful," he finishes. Catcher leans in closer. "Wonderful and funny. — Carrie Ryan

[F]inding the end of the path [is] not quite as important as the journey to getting there. — Carrie Ryan

I can feel the possibility between us. — Carrie Ryan

Suddenly, all I can think about are all the things I don't know about him. All the things I never had time to learn. I don't know if his feet are ticklish or how long his toes are. I don't know what nightmares he had as a child. I don't know which stars are his favorites, what shapes he sees in the clouds. I don't know what he is truly afraid of or what memories he holds closest.
And I don't have enough time now, never enough time. I want to be in the moment with him, feel his body against mine and think of nothing else, but my mind explodes with grief for all that I am missing. All that I will miss. All that I have wasted. — Carrie Ryan

It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be. — Carrie Ryan

I want to sleep, I want dreams to pull me from this world and make me forget. To stop the memories from swirling around me. To put an end to this ache that consumes me. — Carrie Ryan

He stares at the two girls. Two broken bodies that moments before had been whole.
He did this. He helped to break the world. — Carrie Ryan

I realize that life is risks. It's acknowledging the past but looking forward. It's taking a chance that we will
make mistakes but believing that we all deserve to be forgiven. — Carrie Ryan

The earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothingness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything- all of us will simply cease to be.
They'll find peace only when we're all dead. — Carrie Ryan

Because if you're basically a moron at something, it's better to be a private moron than a public one. — Carrie Ryan

The bodies. Oh God, the bodies. And the blood and the screams and the smell of it all, like overripe peaches stuffed with pennies. — Carrie Ryan

I can't compare the lives I could have lived. One would have been comfort and security. But the other ... " She sighs. "It was the most love and the most pain and the most wonder I could have ever known. — Carrie Ryan

I stare at the way the tracks of her tears break across her jaw and along her neck, at how it looks like her face, once shattered, has been carefully put back together. And I wonder if that's what my scars really are: proof that I've put myself back together again. — Carrie Ryan

I realized that life isn't something to be scared of. That you don't have to hold on so tightly that you can't breathe. — Carrie Ryan

Sometimes life isn't about the end. It's not always about tomorrow and the day after that-what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it's about today ... Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde. We could get sick or be injured or anything else. That's the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside. — Carrie Ryan

You think you want love, Mary. You think it is this beautiful gift that does nothing but fill you and make you whole. But you are wrong. Love can be cruel and ugly. It can become dark and cause the deepest pain. — Carrie Ryan

Trauma always has a way of accelerating relationships, creating intimacy where none existed before. — Carrie Ryan

What if I don't know what I want?" I ask her, voicing the fear that rages through me. "What if I never know? What if I'm wrong? — Carrie Ryan

There's one detail I've always remembered: He told me how long it takes the light from the stars to reach through space to us.
How most of the points of light we see actually no longer exist. We're just seeing the remnants of what was
ghosts of what use to be. — Carrie Ryan

How we all make mistakes. And how sometimes those mistakes make our life richer. — Carrie Ryan

We forget that the rest of live can be just as dangerous. I think about how fragile we are here
like fish in a glass bowl with the darkness pressing in on every side. — Carrie Ryan

Afraid of the tangle of words twisting around my own tongue, I swallow and place my hand against the thick wood of the Barrier. — Carrie Ryan

I realize that that's been my problem all along. Not only wanting comfort and security and safety, but looking to others to find it when I need to find it inside myself. — Carrie Ryan

When you know love ... that's what makes life worth it. — Carrie Ryan

I realize that this is the way the world works. If I could stop the spin, stop the rotation, I would have done so long ago. I would have stopped it the first moment that Catcher's lips met mine under the moon in the amusement park. I would have held us in that eternity forever. But of course everything presses forward, even as we dig our feet against the reality of it all. One even tumbles from the next out of our control and we are dragged along, helpless. — Carrie Ryan

I love you, Mary, he says, and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot. He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my har, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving. — Carrie Ryan

I am nothing except this: a girl reborn of the deep ocean silence, meant for nothing but vengeance. — Carrie Ryan

That's what I've started to learn about this world. It might give, but it always takes away. — Carrie Ryan

But then I'm distracted by movement in the Forest, a glimpse of red at the edge of my vision. She's no longer running, no longer even walking or standing, but crawling now. Dragging her broken body across the ground toward me, her fingers clawing at the dirt. Her progress is slow, unbearably so. Such that it's almost sad to see her reduced to this. Her body has used up it's stores of energy and has begun collapsing in on itself. — Carrie Ryan

I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I think that's why she always struggled with God. And I think that's why she also struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold on to it and make sure it never changed. — Carrie Ryan

Life is never that simple. And the fact that it's not that simple to you means only one thing: You're still alive. — Carrie Ryan

Knowing that this is what it means to live. That this love, this need is what drives us to push and fight and build and grow. That as long as there's hope and love in this world, there will always be the living. — Carrie Ryan

We are nothing more than our stories and who we love. What we pass on, how we exist ... it's having people remember who we are. We're terrible at that in this world. At remembering. At passing it on. — Carrie Ryan

It isn't the young men who call to her at night. It's the Forest. It's the whisper of the trees that there's somethine else, outside the fences. That there's still a world that's bigger than any she could ever comprehend and all she has to do is find the strength to go after it. — Carrie Ryan

I know in my life there have been breaches, but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose. — Carrie Ryan

Could I really let her die? I ask myself.
The most alarming realization is the sudden and sure answer: yes.
I could absolutely let her die. — Carrie Ryan

Habits die hard and absence doesn't stop my fingers from searching. — Carrie Ryan

Every night I drown and every morning I wake up struggling to breathe. — Carrie Ryan

The broken ones need someone to fight for them even harder. — Carrie Ryan

Maybe if she'd invited him into the forest all those years ago, things would have ended differently. But she doubted it. Darkness grew where it would and took what it wanted. It staked its claim and never let go.
And no one could pry you free of it. — Carrie Ryan

You could open the door, Frances whispers. Find your way through the steam, not even bothering to remove your clothes before stepping in with him.
His hands could slide along where your thin shirt molds against your hips. His fingers could find the hem, slowly gather it, inching higher. — Carrie Ryan

It's one thing to know a truth in your head but another to understand it in your heart. — Carrie Ryan

If your friend really cared about you he wouldn't let you take such risks. — Carrie Ryan

How did she die?" Grey finally asks.
"Painfully." I hurl the word, dagger sharp, because I'm angry. And hurt ...
Grey's face crumbles. "Oh God." He presses a hand over his eyes as he doubles over, falling to his knees in the surf.
For a moment I stand over him, watching the way that he's broken. Knowing that I'm broken in the same way. My stomach roils at what I say next - at my capacity for cruelty. At my need to hurt him.
But it's the only way I know to save myself. Truth and revenge, my only lifelines. I let myself slip until I'm kneeling next to him. I place my arms around him. Comforting him.
"There's nothing you could have done." I say the words softly, knowing the aching brutality of them.
Because there was something he could have done to save her. He could have told the truth. — Carrie Ryan

She stood on the pile of rubble, her sword held high in such a way that it gleamed in the damp morning. She looked bold and fierce - unlike the science geek who'd been his best friend for years. — Carrie Ryan

His voice in my mind is soft, just out of reach like a spent echo. I wonder if these memories are worth holding on to. Are worth the burden. I wonder what purpose they serve. — Carrie Ryan

wonder how it is that we are never truly prepared for death. How — Carrie Ryan

Did you know that when we were kids Cass used to tell me your stories? She used to laugh at you. Not in a mean way, but in the way that Cass used to laugh at everything before ... " He gestures around us at our world now.
I shake my head. "I thought Cass never liked my stories. Never remembered them."
"Oh yes, I would beg her to tell me if she had new stories from you."
"Why didn't you ask me yourself?" I whisper.
"Because you were Harry's," he responds.
"Not always."
"Yes, always," he says. "Always in his eyes," he adds in a softer tone. — Carrie Ryan

I want to raise my hand to his cheek. I want to tell him it's okay. That it's pretty here in my head and it doesn't hurt. — Carrie Ryan

It's as though my mother's life has been cut in two and we each only hold half of her memories. And I realize that even combined we would never know the whole. She's greater than the sum of what we remember of her. The woman Harry knows and the one I know are just edges of something larger.
I think about Elias and what he knows of my life in the Forest. And of Catcher and what he knows of my life in Vista. But does either of them know the whole of me? — Carrie Ryan

I've let the day-to-day existence of life blind me to dreams. — Carrie Ryan

We are our own memory-keepers and we have failed ourselves. It is like that game we played in school as children. Sitting in a circle, one student whispers a phrase into another student's ear and the phrase is passed around until the last student in the circle repeats what she hears, only to find out it is nothing like what it is supposed to be.
This is our life now. — Carrie Ryan

When you only look at the sky," she whispered, "it's like nothing's changed. — Carrie Ryan

Do you still believe that if you truly want something enough it can happen? I ask. I think of all the times I wanted to stop the world from spinning, all the times I wanted to go back and start over again. All the things I've wanted to undo or take back. Did I not want them enough? — Carrie Ryan

How did he change? What was he like before?" ...
"He was happy before. — Carrie Ryan

We're the winners because we get to live. Because we get to survive. Despite the pain of this life, we get to feel. — Carrie Ryan

I will always need you," I whisper. "All of this time I've waited for you. And you were never coming for me. Why did you let me wait for you? — Carrie Ryan

If anything, revenge is the absence of emotion. It's pure, calculated thought stripped bare of entangling emotions. It's cold, deliberate action. — Carrie Ryan

Because I do not accept the hand of God; I do not believe in divine intervention or predestination. I cannot believe that our paths are pre-chosen and that our lives have no will. That there is no such thing as choice. — Carrie Ryan

Always," I tell him. He catches his breath and I lean away until I can see his eyes. "I'm scared of losing my heart to you. But I think it's a risk I'm willing to take. — Carrie Ryan

Step outside what's comfortable and safe. — Carrie Ryan

Now that I've said this, I can't help but say more, can't help but speak the words that have been gathering in my head like dark clouds before the storm, building pressure and growing, and rolling over themselves in chaos. — Carrie Ryan

So, to very unsubtly change the subject, what kind of books do you like to read? And so help me if you say Greek mythology, I'll turn this car around myself.
It takes him a minute to get my joke, and then he starts laughing and I join in. And there's something about it all - the expanse of the summer sky arcing overhead and my hand still on Grey's warm thigh - that makes me wonder if I could just pause life here and wrap a bubble around this moment, if it would be enough to keep me happy. — Carrie Ryan

Eight Years Old, Eighteen Years Old
Cassidy was barely conscious when the March Hare, finally finished, gingerly lifted her onto her stump and gently slid a teacup onto her finger. She strained her senses and thought she heard a long sigh and the creak of old bones as he settled at the other end of the table. He stayed there with her through the night. Every time she struggled to open her eyes, she'd see him, the ghostly outline of white ears against the threatening shadows.
Perhaps he had killed her after all. Perhaps he hadn't. There was only one thing Cassidy Evans knew for sure: It had been a marvelous tea party. — Carrie Ryan

It's not about surviving. It should be about love. When you know love ... that's what makes this life worth it. When you live with it everyday. Wake up with it, hold on to it during the thunder and after a nightmare. When love is your refuge from the death that surrounds us all and when it fills you so tight that you can't express it. — Carrie Ryan

Do you ever think it's the dead that have the happy ending? Just they don't have to worry about surviving."
"But they're dead," he says
"Yeah. That means they don't have to remember anything."
Elias shakes his head. "That means they can't ever love."
I snort. "So they don't know loss. — Carrie Ryan

With our seat belts still fastened, there's no way for us to move closer, at least not without clearly stating our intentions to do so. And this is all too young and new for that. — Carrie Ryan

-you can think you know someone and then they say something or do something and suddenly everything changes. — Carrie Ryan

It makes it seem as though there's no door between us at all. The sound of water gathering, cascading, trailing along the planes, ridges, and hollows of his naked body feels more intimate than if he were standing in front of me wearing nothing at all. — Carrie Ryan

I know,' Jed says. I'm thrown over his shoulder and I can feel how his body shakes and I know that he is crying. For me, for Beth. And I wonder if there was ever a crueler world than this one that forces us to kill the people we love most. — Carrie Ryan

I much prefer the colors dancing in my mind. — Carrie Ryan

As I pass by him, I feel a crackle of tension between us. A slow heat begins its way into my cheeks, mirroring the flush in Grey's, and I realize that I hadn't been the only one acutely aware of his nakedness in the shower. — Carrie Ryan

Wait," Fin said, puzzling through the words. "That was a seed, not a secret."
"Of course it was." It sounded annoyed, at least for a tree. "Here, secrets turn to seed, good secrets take root, and the vines that grow bloom into rumors. They do that, you know," it said, as much to itself as to Fin. "Once planted, they grow. And start new rumors all their own. — Carrie Ryan

But then he whispers, "It will be okay, Mary." He pulls my head down to his chest and he wraps both his arms around me and all I can think is why can't life just stop here and now and leave us be in this moment. — Carrie Ryan

I catch my breath but he's not finished. I love you, Annah. And if you're willing to risk everything to be with me, then I'm willing to risk everything to be with you. I'm going to keep fighting for you, every day of my life. If you'll have me. — Carrie Ryan

Here, in the bustling stalls of the market, he's anonymous. And it's obvious how much he prefers it this way. — Carrie Ryan

I glance back at Shepherd. His eyes betray his mixture of revulsion and curiosity. It's obvious he knows he shouldn't want to hear this, that the horror is too great, yet he can't stop himself from listening. — Carrie Ryan

I sit with my knees pulled in tight and my arms wrapped around my shins. I can no longer feel my feet, as if blood refuses to spread so far from my heart. — Carrie Ryan

He is always there for her,always waiting. The most constant companion anyone could pray for. One of these days she will return to him. She will feel that desire again, that need beyond human comprehension, and they will be together forever. — Carrie Ryan

It's the most beautiful thing in the world." he says, "I just ... " He pauses and looks back into the fire. "I just kept walking. Wrapped in this white nothingness. — Carrie Ryan

In the moment between my mother's death and her Return, I stop believing in God. — Carrie Ryan

That's the thing about silences and futures; someone always comes along to fill them in. If you let them. — Carrie Ryan

I'd been hoping to get close enough to Grey to gain access to his room, but I hadn't expected it to come so easily. All those convoluted plans and all I really had to do was stammer and blush. — Carrie Ryan

Would you ever give up the ocean for me? — Carrie Ryan

Not all monsters are filled with darkness.' She wanted him to understand this so badly that her voice trembled.
He didn't even hesitate. 'This one is.'
She allowed herself a moment to admire Tommy, the way he stood so resolute, like a knight charging after the monster. He just didn't get that this fight wasn't his to wage.
'Exactly so,' she finally said.
Of course Tommy would think she talking to him. He exhaled as though relieved and the start of a smile eased the tension around his lips. By the time he realized that she'd spoken the words to someone over his shoulder, it was already too late. — Carrie Ryan

Every day, the pain of that moment has scored through me. The humiliation and anger and misery and rejection. So many emotions that churn over me, always forcing me to feel it all fresh again and again - never in my life had I felt so ugly and unwanted. — Carrie Ryan

All my life I have been trained by that siren. Before I could walk I knew the siren meant death. It meant somehow the fences had been breached and the Unconsecrated were shuffling among us. It meant grab weapons, move to the platforms and pull up the ladders - even if it necessitated leaving the living behind.
Growing up, my mother used to tell me about how in the beginning, when her own great-great-great-grandmother was a child, that siren would wail almost constantly as the village was bombarded with the Unconsecrated. But then the fences has been fortified, the Guardians had formed and time had passed with the Unconsecrated dwindling to the point that I couldn't remember a time in the past few years when that siren had wailed and it had not been a drill. I know that in my life there have been breaches but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose. I can fear the Unconsecrated well enough without them. — Carrie Ryan

In the beginning, it said, we did not understand the extent of it. I — Carrie Ryan

Sometiems it's those things you can't touch that you need to hold onto most. — Carrie Ryan

I don't understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it's all I've ever wanted.
All I've ever known is about leaving or being left. — Carrie Ryan

Darkness grew where it would and took what it wanted. It staked its claim and never let go. And no one else could pry you free of it. — Carrie Ryan

But of course everything presses forward, even as we dig our feet against the reality of it all. — Carrie Ryan