Courtney Summers Quotes & Sayings

She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go? — Courtney Summers

I was perfect... and then I wasn't. — Courtney Summers

I take a deep breath. It smells suspiciously like bullshit in here. — Courtney Summers

Now is not about gathering courage, it's about staying one step ahead of my fear. — Courtney Summers

I am so sad. I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts. I shift, restless, but it doesn't help. It's like - time. All this time in here is on me, has its hooks in me. Maybe if I sleep more, I'll wake up and I'll feel different, but I can't. The storm is really happening now and it makes the room feel emptier. Makes me feel emptier. — Courtney Summers

Sloane is sleeping. I sit down on the edge of the bed and listen to her breathing and then I match my breath to hers because if she's still here, so am I. — Courtney Summers

We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the soundtrack of our own impending death. — Courtney Summers

It's critical we examine the kind of standards we hold fictional girls to and consider how it reflects in the way we treat real girls and, most important, what kind of emotional impact that has on them. What are we saying to girls when we cannot accept difficult, hurting female characters as being worthy of love because they are difficult and hurting? — Courtney Summers

Everyone should know
there's no such thing as a decent human being. It's just an illusion. And when it's gone, it's really gone. — Courtney Summers

This is awful. This is so hopeless. We're all lost in different ways, so how do we even help each other find our way out. We won't. We can't. We'll just stay lost forever. — Courtney Summers

Tell Liz,' I say, 'the mean girl totally got what she deserved in the end. — Courtney Summers

This must be what Dorothy felt like, I think. Maybe. If Dorothy was six scared teenagers and Oz was hell. — Courtney Summers

Becky, you're only standing there because I decided I didn't want to. — Courtney Summers

I think there's nothing left for me. I don't think that for everyone else."
"So what do they have that you don't at this point?"
I press my lips together. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want to talk about how everyone has something even if they don't really have it anymore, that what they had makes them strong enough for this, to keep going. — Courtney Summers

How are you feeling?"
She rubs the back of her neck. "Stupid question."
"Well, ask me and I'll tell you I'm fucking great. — Courtney Summers

Thank God I don't have to like her to love her, Holly — Courtney Summers

It can't be wrong to want to see someone because you like the person you are when you're around them. That's probably one of the best reasons you could have. — Courtney Summers

It's a slow process; he always seems reluctant to let her go and I think she likes to savor that as much as possible. — Courtney Summers

I wouldn't do that. You don't have to accept it." He pauses. "But maybe you should hate the people responsible. Because it's not you. — Courtney Summers

And that I miss her, that I need her, and this kind of missing, this kind of need, the kind of emptiness it leaves behind is worse than waking up one day and finding the whole world has collapsed in on itself, that I was over longer before it was. — Courtney Summers

The repeat is always the killer. Everything inside you goes into saying the word once, but sorry is the kind of word the person you say it to always wants to hear twice. — Courtney Summers

How many people you lost? he asks asfter a second.
God. Numbers heavy in my mind will be even heavier off my tongue. I don't know what's worse, holding their names, or turning them into a body count. — Courtney Summers

You think I ever stopped wanting to die after the motel?" I ask. "You think a feeling like that just goes away? — Courtney Summers

There's always this one girl. She's desperate and she's weird and she's jealous, and you're stuck with her, no matter how hard you try to get her off your back. Just throw some really fucked-up self-esteem issues into the mix and you have Kara. — Courtney Summers

You know how you feel when you meet someone and they just give you the impression they're living on this entirely different planet from everyone else? That's sort of how I felt when I met you. — Courtney Summers

He shoves his hands in his pockets, which is okay by me because his hands are forever distracting, all the things they could do. — Courtney Summers

I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared. I opened my eyes and I felt it go. — Courtney Summers

The truth is, I don't really know if she could help me, but I know she really wants to believe she could and I know she wants me to come to her believing it too. My love should be knowing this about her and being able to pretend, but I can — Courtney Summers

I want to shove the question down his throat until he chokes on it. — Courtney Summers

It's okay, we can go back from this. It comes out of his mouth so kind - he means it - and it just makes me feel worse. That he can kiss me like this and change everything, but still promise me nothing has to change because I can't promise him anything. — Courtney Summers

This is what pain feels like when it's happening now and I beg my body to know this difference. It won't listen to me. — Courtney Summers

I remind myself it's nothing I have to hold or be held to. — Courtney Summers

It's when my body decides to remind me it can do more than I'll ever want it to, it is so painful. — Courtney Summers

I press my hands against my face and split myself in two. Push away the side that's the truth because that's the side that wants to be angry at him for how wrong he is because of all the things he doesn't know. I focus on the side I've shown to him. There's so much missing, but it's better that it's missing. And as long as it's missing, that makes everything he's saying to me now - right. — Courtney Summers

I close my eyes and lean my head against the seat, and the word fuck just repeats itself over and over in my head, because fuck. — Courtney Summers

I elbow my way through the mass of people to get to my locker because there's something immensely satisfying about the toughest part of my arm connecting with the softest part of everyone else. — Courtney Summers

I'm struck by how amazing it is and how sad that makes me, because I've never seen that. He's not like that around me. The way his mouth quirks and lights up his eyes. He should smile more often. It's so innocent. — Courtney Summers

Except forget it happened on Monday, right? And I can kiss you, but I don't know if I can hold your hand. And I can kiss you, but I can't ask you questions. Forget it, Parker. If you're too afraid to start anything, just forget it. — Courtney Summers

We were beyond needing other people. Anyone else who happens on the both of us, they're just temps. — Courtney Summers

The problem with alienating, self-destructive behavior is people get it into their heads it's a cry for help. It wasn't. — Courtney Summers

But just because something starts out sweet doesn't mean it won't push itself so far past anything you could call sweet anymore. And if it all starts like this, how do you see what's coming? — Courtney Summers

The infected give chase and I won't look back, can't. Hearing them is enough, a cacophony of breathless shrieking that all means one thing: mine, mine, mine. — Courtney Summers

I'm hazy on remembering or maybe I'm just tired or maybe a part of my brain wants to sabotage me. — Courtney Summers

I've fought off groups before and making it out in one piece was pure dumb luck. That's it. These days it feels like alive is an accidental state of being. — Courtney Summers

Helen Turner hates me and the way Helen Turner hates me feels like the worst kind of betrayal. A woman who doesn't think about daughters she doesn't have. — Courtney Summers

I wonder if, even after all of this, he understands how fragile good things are in my hands and how many times they've been taken away from me. — Courtney Summers

I'm distracted by everything, overwhelmed by this: people look at me and then - they don't. Their eyes skim over me and move on to something else. There's an unquestioned acceptance of my being here, being part of this. It's a warm feeling and I'm so hungry for it, but I close myself off to it before I get my fill. I'm not going home to that. Best stay starved. — Courtney Summers

I want to burn a moment of helplessness into him so he can know a fraction of what I felt, what I feel, what's followed me every moment since, so I You cover cover his her mouth mouth. — Courtney Summers

Cardboard cutouts of cheerleaders operated by arthritic monkeys would move more fluidly. — Courtney Summers

I'm sorry," he tells me.
I sit down on the bed. He returns to the view of the street below. I follow his gaze and I see the infected walking slowly back and forth.
"It's okay," I say.
"Okay," he says. He nods. "Good."
He puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger. — Courtney Summers

I don't like you with Becky. She's not a very nice girl.'
'I don't like you with Jake. He's not me. — Courtney Summers

I remember how covered in blood Rhys was. All over his shirt, his jeans, caked on his neck, his hands. I didn't even think about it then, but it must have belonged to his mother, father. For seven days, he wore their deaths and he never said a word to any of us about it. I feel so bad for him and I don't know how to tell him, so I reach for his hand and hold it as hard as I can, crushing his fingers in mine. It's a futile attempt to redirect his pain. He lets me hurt him for a few minutes before gently pulling away. — Courtney Summers

He tells me its going to be okay until all the words blur together into a hum that makes me close my eyes and I start to go away and five, ten, fifteen minutes later, I'm aware of my hand sliding down his lap and then nothingness and then the gentle sensation of his index finger pressing into my open palm and then his hand is at my face, running his fingers across my skin and I'm so awake. — Courtney Summers

When I found my dad, I knew things were going to change forever, but sitting next to her, getting ready to see my dad buried, I felt it in a different way. Everything ached.
This reminds me of that - how it aches.
But it's a better ache, too.
I'm hopeful.
I can't remember the last time I felt hopeful. — Courtney Summers

The silence stretches between us. Words aren't so easy to come by, after his admission. It takes him a while to dig some up. — Courtney Summers

Funny how the last thing we want the world to see is almost the first thing to show. — Courtney Summers

A whole world exists outside of that hellhole. — Courtney Summers

I hear the unmistakable sound of glass breaking and I start apologizing to no one, trying to pick it up again, but I can't.
I can't get my hands to work because they're too cold. — Courtney Summers

So? You have a boy's name."
"And you have a dog's name. — Courtney Summers

I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually." Harrison finally looks at us. "My life I thought-but I mean ... it's nothing."
"Don't cry" Grace says. "You have a lot of time."
"No, I don't."
"Yeah, you do."
"No.-"
"Yeah! Yeah, you do. It's okay. Look-"
She does something that is so amazingly selfless and also gross. She tilts Harrison's face up and gives him a sweet kiss on the lips and it lasts long enough for him to taste her back, to move his mouth against hers.
Harrison stares at her dumbfounded but he's stopped crying
She is so nice. — Courtney Summers

You get away with a lot, even after you're caught. — Courtney Summers

Like I'd let you captain me. — Courtney Summers

I don't have time for the 'things change speech, Parker."
"So give me the CliffNotes version. — Courtney Summers

Then I should be dead really soon, because you're stressing me out. — Courtney Summers

I couldn't talk him out of you. — Courtney Summers

Eddie, It's like you died that night, he whispers.
So that's it. I died.
I've been dead.
I blink back the tears and pick at the mattress, but I don't say anything. I don't know what I could say to him. I don't know how to convince him I'm still here when I'm not sure of it myself anymore. — Courtney Summers

How do you say that physically, you're okay, when everything is not. — Courtney Summers

I wish I didn't have a body, sometimes. — Courtney Summers

I didn't want to be popular because it was easier; I wanted to be popular because in high school that's the best thing you can be: perfect. Everything else is shit. — Courtney Summers

A deadline should not prevent you from writing, but writing will help prevent you from missing your deadline. Then write a word. Then remind yourself of that again. And then write another and hey, look at you! You're spitting in that deadline's eye. — Courtney Summers

You make me feel alone. — Courtney Summers

How does it feel to know that even at my worst, you're still not good enough? — Courtney Summers

I keep my eyes fixed on those silhouettes in the distance and all I can think is how could we lost the world to something so still? — Courtney Summers

Carving out our own place, making something out of nothing. It feels as right as it doesn't and I think maybe I was wrong. We can't have exactly everything we lost. But maybe we can come close. — Courtney Summers

You know all the ways you can kill a girl?
God, there are so many. — Courtney Summers

Mom and Dad exchange a nervous glance and have a telepathic conversation about it. I hear every word.
Do we let her out? It's past curfew.
True, but look at that - at least she asked!
I know! I can hardly believe it!
She could have sneaked out, but she asked!
I know! We're good parents!
"What time will you be back?" Dad asks. — Courtney Summers

I hate that I'm so numb and empty and disconnected from most of these people but even I can see worth in stupid little moments like these. These people aren't even my family, but I can see their value and if I can see it in something this small, when I feel this bad, then
Then why didn't he? — Courtney Summers

I'm afraid everything I was is gone and all that's left is everything I'm not. — Courtney Summers

She was supposed to be the strong one," she says.
"Sloane."
"But I've gotten so much farther than her. — Courtney Summers

Uh, what are you doing?'
'What does it look like I'm doing?' Jake asks, settling into the seat beside me. The bus jerks forward. 'I'm sitting beside you.'
'No, you're not. Your seat is in the middle. Nice try, though.'
He has the audacity to ignore me, sets his book bag on his lap and rummages through it. After a minute, he pulls out a folded sheet of paper and hands it to me.
I unfold it. 'A love letter? How sweet.'
'No.' He turns pink. 'It's just something I found on the Internet-'
'Porn? You shouldn't have. — Courtney Summers

If anyone else said that to me, I think I'd roll my eyes, but Culler saying it to me means me committing it to memory and locking it inside so I'll always have it. — Courtney Summers

Time passes too quickly when you're getting ready to do something you don't want to do. — Courtney Summers

Sometimes you catch something specific like the screams and cries of people trying to hold on to each other before they're swallowed into other, bigger noises.
This is what it sound like when the world ends. — Courtney Summers

Because maybe it would be better if we all got apologized to first. Maybe it would hurt less, expecting to be hurt. — Courtney Summers

I will see my father in every anger. — Courtney Summers

My hands are dying. — Courtney Summers

He's the boy who stopped and I'm the girl he stopped for and what happens to her, if he goes away? — Courtney Summers

It's amazing how bad you can make the truth sound. As long as you keep it partially recognizable when you spit it out, a crowd will eat it up without even thinking abot how hard you chewed on it first. — Courtney Summers

Anytime something bad happens to a woman close to me, it's how I think. I have a daughter. — Courtney Summers

Is this what it's like to get close to other people
you do something insane together and then you have to share everything even if you don't really want to? — Courtney Summers

I finally squint up at the face above and am relieved to find, not a wolf, but a woman, just like me. Until I see the uniform. — Courtney Summers

Waiting around to be saved is like waiting to die and I have done more of both than anyone else in the room. — Courtney Summers

Penny Young is the most perfect girl you know and those kinds of girls, they're put on this earth to break you. Peel back her skin and you can see her poison. Peel back mine, you can still see traces of where her poison's been. — Courtney Summers

I think you're crazy good at this survival stuff, Cary."
His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels strange to have that kind of power over someone.
"I mean, you're crazy good at it for a stoner who couldn't seem to get his shit together academically at all," I add. — Courtney Summers

You're not responsible for everything, Parker. You can't control the way things end up. Stop trying. — Courtney Summers

When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We'll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we'll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and winners and we'll watch these movies until we are so far removed from our own history, we'll forget how it really felt to be here. — Courtney Summers

The fall takes no time and forever. — Courtney Summers

So you never said if you're having a boy or girl."
"We won't know until it's born."
I hope it's not a girl. The thought shocks me, comes so quick it has to be honest. So I think it again, careful and slow to be sure. I hope it's not a girl. I feel it even more the second time. — Courtney Summers

Do you have a credit card or something?" I ask because who wouldn't have a credit card handy during the zombie fucking apocalypse. — Courtney Summers

In the girls' bathroom, I run the water hot and hold my hands under it until I feel — Courtney Summers