Ellen Hopkins Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ellen Hopkins.
Famous Quotes By Ellen Hopkins
Sorry. But I don't need some money-grubbing preacher defining my relationship with God. — Ellen Hopkins
I locate the ladies' room. Luckily, it's empty, no one to see the vacant-eyed girl, staring in the mirror. Staring at a stranger who doesn't care if she dies. Maybe she wants to die. Who would care if I died? My face is hollow-cheeked, spiced with sores
the places where I stab at bugs. Tiny bugs, almost invisible, but irritating. Usually they come out at night, when I'm lying there, begging for sleep. I've been meaning to tell the manager that the apartment needs to be sprayed. Sprayed. Steam cleaned. Deodorized. My hair looks odd too. It used to be darker. Shinier. Prettier. Can hair lose color when you're only eighteen? What if I go all the way gray? Will Trey still love me? Will anyone? That is, if I fool them all and don't die. — Ellen Hopkins
Nobody seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize. — Ellen Hopkins
The true cost of war can't be measured in dollars, infrastructure, or body counts. It is tomorrows, wrung out of hope by yesterdays that refuse to retreat, vanish into the smoke of memory. — Ellen Hopkins
The judge had a God complex. -
He started an avalanche. -
It swallowed her whole. -
Could I have saved her. -
I was to young, clueless. -
He was a self serving bastard. -
He played the prodigal trump card.
What the hell gave him that right? -
Contrite was not his style. -
How could she love him so much? -
Things would never be the same. - — Ellen Hopkins
Why are we here? Is there, really, some intelligent design? Why do we cry for someone who leaves us, if there's some Grand Pearly Gate in the sky? Why worry about how we build our lives if the ultimate ending for all is death, a single breath away? — Ellen Hopkins
Sometimes you're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you. Sometimes you dont wake up. But if you happen to you know things will never be the same. Sometimes that's not so bad. Sometimes lives instersect, no rhyme, no reason, except, perhaps, for a passing semi. — Ellen Hopkins
Did you ever, when you were little, endure your parents' warnings, then wait for them to leave the room, pry loose protective covers and consider inserting some metal object into an electrical outlet?
Did you wonder if for once you might light up the room?
When you were big enough to cross the street on your own, did you ever wait for a signal, hear the frenzied approach of a fire truck and feel like stepping out in front of it?
Did you wonder just how far that rocket ride might take you?
When you were almost grown, did you ever sit in a bubble bath, perspiration pooling, notice a blow dryer plugged in within easy reach, and think about dropping it into the water?
Did you wonder if the expected rush might somehow fail you?
And now, do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home? — Ellen Hopkins
All I can do is lie here, brain turning somersaults. It's nights like these when memories stir, whipping themselves into stiff peaks of pain. — Ellen Hopkins
Honesty.
Sobriety.
My virginity.
No way to regain
the first two, I almost
gave away the last. — Ellen Hopkins
Fire!
Your nose ignites,
flameless kerosene
(and, some say, Drano)
laced with ephedrine
you want to cry
powdered demons bite
through cartilage and sinuses,
take dead aim at your
brain, jump inside
want to scream
troops of tapping feet
fall into rhythm,
marking time, right
between your eyes
get the urge to dance
louder, louder, ultra
gray-matter power,
shock waves of energy
mushroom inside your head
you want to let go
detonate,
annihilate barriers,
bring down the walls,
unleashing floodwaters,
freeing long-captive dreams
to ride the current
through
arteries and capillaries,
pulsing, rushing,
raging torrents
pounding against your heart
sweeping you away — Ellen Hopkins
Perfection is a ridiculous goal because there is no such thing. Real beauty is what you are inside. — Ellen Hopkins
Empty and closed, hovering in some frozen netherworld neither sun nor rain could thaw. — Ellen Hopkins
Another day, a different hour, take a left and not a right, you'd wind up a whole different being. Knowing if that would be better requires a realm of experience only decades can build. — Ellen Hopkins
When you've only got one little shimmer of sunshine, you capture it best you can. — Ellen Hopkins
Is this overwhelming attraction really mutual, or is my believing that just a sign of impending insanity? Is my lunacy on the horizon, or is already here? — Ellen Hopkins
Some secrets
are better left kept. — Ellen Hopkins
From what I've seen, love isn't about mutual respect. It's more concerns with control than sacrifice. And I wonder whether it's better or worse when love finally walks away. — Ellen Hopkins
Living means taking chances. Risks. Playing safe all the time is being dead inside, even if you happen to still be breathing. — Ellen Hopkins
Sometimes I'm not so sure just who I am either. — Ellen Hopkins
I fell into a big pit of black depression. That happens sometimes, when too much shit gets flung at me at once. It's like all the external pressure sucks into me, then tries to escape again. But it can't. So it builds. Throbs. Makes me feel like my skin is anxious to split. I think that feeling is why some people cut - little slices so they don't shred completely. (212) — Ellen Hopkins
Then teach me how to not care about someone who was everything to me. All I want is to know she's okay. Is that too much to ask? — Ellen Hopkins
Dream bigger before you can't remember to dream at all. — Ellen Hopkins
Secrets.
We keep them to protect ourselves.
We keep them to protect others.
We keep them out of shame.
We keep them out of fear.
We keep them... wait... do we keep them for do they keep us? — Ellen Hopkins
The longer we try to hold on to each other, the more it will hurt when we finally fall apart. — Ellen Hopkins
Raining radiation on this ozone-deprived planet. The only thing she ever longed for was short-lived love. — Ellen Hopkins
But on that night, Dad staggered in, eyes eerily lit.
The corners of his mouth foaming spit.
His demons planned an overnight stay.
Mom motioned to take the girls away,
hide them in their rooms, safe in their beds.
We closed the doors, covered our heads,
as if blankets could mute the sounds of his blows
or we could silence her screams beneath her pillows.
I hugged the littlest ones close to my chest,
till the beat of my heart lulled them to rest.
Only then did I let myself cry.
Only then did I let myself wonder why
Mom didn't fight back, didn't defend,
didn't confess to family or friend.
Had Dad's demons claimed her soul?
Or was this, as well, another woman's role? — Ellen Hopkins
I had never kissed a boy, had never even considered that I might enjoy such an unclean thing, until literature opened my eyes. — Ellen Hopkins
he came into this world infected with wanderlust — Ellen Hopkins
Girls are impossible to satisfy." "Not every girl." Not me. I'd be happy if he'd just like me a little. — Ellen Hopkins
Memory is a tenuous thing, like a rainbow's end or a camera with a failing lens. — Ellen Hopkins
I wonder if what I did made her hurt as much as she hurt me. Only fair, to trade hurt. But life isn't fair. — Ellen Hopkins
Forever made that kiss stand out in my mind, touch my heart, make me remember a kiss so tender. — Ellen Hopkins
I never went to Albuquerque expecting to find love. I thought it had found me there, followed me home. I never came home expecting to lose love in the space of one brief telephone call. Is it always so short-lived? — Ellen Hopkins
You can have your pick of pretty women. Why me?
You're like the ocean, Pattyn. Pretty enough on the surface, but dive down into your depths, you'll find beauty most people never see. Lucky me. I fell in, headfirst. — Ellen Hopkins
Hell isn't some fiery pit "down there." It's right here on Earth, in every dirty city, every yawning town. — Ellen Hopkins
Life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live. — Ellen Hopkins
They say, when facing the onslaught of tooth and claw, a creature's heart can simply quit. — Ellen Hopkins
Forever has no meaning when you're living in the moment. I wasn't ready for that moment to end. — Ellen Hopkins
My life is over.
My one forever love has
been snatched away,
condemned by my own
father's rules to die,
just because he loved me.
I am without a home,
without a single person to love.
And after having
discovered love, lived for a short
while surrounded by love,
that is to much to bear.
I am a pariah, at church,
at school. The few people
I once called friends have
betrayed me and caused
the death of my husband,
our innocent child.
And so they should die too.
All of them. Dad. Bishop
Crandall. Trevor, Becca, Emily.
With the pull of a 10mm hair
trigger, their lives will end at sacrament meeting.
Such lovely irony!
And when I finish there,
I'll hide in the desert,
reload, and go in search
of Carmen and Tiffany,
who started the rumors.
And Derek, just because. — Ellen Hopkins
I don't love him, & he definitely doesn't love me. Still, he semi-fills a gaping black hole inside me. That place wants love, maybe even needs love, but love is something Im pretty sure doesn't exist. — Ellen Hopkins
I don't think God has a gender. I don't think God hates gays or Democrats, and I don't think you have to be Born Again to find your way to Heaven. I believe God expects us to care for one another, even those who are different. God wants us to be good stewards of this planet, and that means not wasting or violating its resources. Most of all, it means not blowing it up. Especially not in God's name. — Ellen Hopkins
vague as a soft copper pulse of moonlight through blossoming sea coast fog. — Ellen Hopkins
Some people never find love at all, count yourself blessed if it ever happens your way — Ellen Hopkins
And almost instantly, Daddy made everything seem just fine. Even when it wasn't. — Ellen Hopkins
I've Got A Little Problem
And I'm not really sure how to fix it.
Not really sure I need to. Not really sure I could.
Life is pretty good. But once in a while, uninvited and uninitiated anger invades me.
It starts, a tiny gnaw at the back of my brain. Like a migraine except without pain. They say headaches blossom, but this isn't so much a blooming as a bleeding. Irritation bleeds into rage, seethes into fury. An ulcer, emptying hatred inside me. And I don't know why. Life is pretty good.
So, what the hell? — Ellen Hopkins
Women are inferior. And God likes it that way. — Ellen Hopkins
TRIAD:
Three
separate highways
intersect at a place
no reasonable person
would ever want to go.
Three
lives that would have
been cut short, if not
for hasty interventions
by loved ones. Or Fate.
Three
people, with nothing
at all in common
except age, proximity,
and a wish to die.
Three
tapestries, tattered
at the edges and come
unwoven to reveal
a single mutual thread. — Ellen Hopkins
The more I think about it, the more I believe there has to be a subtle yet satisfying method of revenge. — Ellen Hopkins
The monster will forever speak
to me. An today,
it's calling me out the door. — Ellen Hopkins
I don't belong here. I know that. But I don't belong anywhere else, either. And that is at the heart of the black depression pressing down on me, flattening me. I have no place. No home. Sex, but no real affection. I am kept, but not cherished. — Ellen Hopkins
Dad staggered in, eyes eerily lit.
The corners of his mouth foaming spit.
His demons planned an overnight stay.
Mom motioned to take the girls away.
hide them in their rooms, safe in their beds.
We closed the doors, covered our heads,
as if the blankets could mute the sounds of his blows
or we could silence her screams behind out pillows.
I hugged the littlest ones close to my chest,
till the beat of my heart lulled them to rest.
Only then did I let myself cry.
Only then did I let myself wonder why
Mom didn't fight back, didn't defend,
didn't confess to family or friend.
Had Dad's demons claimed her soul?
Or was this, as well, a woman's role? — Ellen Hopkins
When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival. — Ellen Hopkins
I truly wish the power of his love could eclipse the overwhelming shame. — Ellen Hopkins
Scientists say every action initiates an equal and opposite reaction. I say that's just the start. I say every action initiates a most unequal and upredictable chain reaction, that every filament of living becomes part of a larger weave, while remaining identifiable. That every line of latitude requires several stripes of longitude to obtain meaning. That every universe is part of a bigger heaven, a heaven of rhythm and geometry, where a heartbeat is the apex of a triangle. — Ellen Hopkins
Red and raw like my brain, unable to shut down, thoughts crashing like electrons orbiting a nucleus of deuling emotions. — Ellen Hopkins
I hide hurt behind a fake smile. I wear it all the time. Everyone says how I always look so cheerful. Shows what they know I guess. — Ellen Hopkins
Whatever has happened in someone's past, the future is theirs to shape. The first step is to find a way out. — Ellen Hopkins
Funny how when your life is mostly bullshit, you turn off feeling.
Sometimes it's hard to turn it back on again. — Ellen Hopkins
When i'm with you my blood flows smoothly through — Ellen Hopkins
Some people
Never find the right kind of love
you know, the kind that steals
your breath away.
Like diving into a snowmelt.
The kind that jolts your heart,
sets it beating apace.
An anxious hiccuping of hummingbirds wings.
The kind that makes every terrible minute apart feel like hours.
Days.
Years.
Some people flit from one insane possibility to the next.
Never experincing the connection of two people.
rocked by destiny.
Never knowing what it means to love someone else,
more than themselves.
More than life itself, or the promise of something better.
Beyond this world,
More even (forgive me!) than god.
Lucky me, I found the right kind of love.
With the wrong person. — Ellen Hopkins
Why doesn't love come with an owner's manual? — Ellen Hopkins
And how can it be he's so in love with me? To grow up without love, and still have so much inside? — Ellen Hopkins
I wasn't an alcoholic. I didn't drink every day, didn't often drink to excess or binge. And could leave it alone completely for large swaths of time. But I did drink to be social. To have fun with friends. Sometimes, to sleep. Sometimes, to forget. — Ellen Hopkins
So you try to think
of someone else you're
mad at, and the unavoidable
answer pops into your
warped little brain: everyone. — Ellen Hopkins
You're a gift, one I'll always treasure. You're a dream I never want to wake up from. You open my eyes to things I'll never really see. You're the best thing that will ever happen to me. Be safe. Be smart. Stay you. — Ellen Hopkins
I think if love is real, and headed toward the altar, the sex part-within reason-can wait. — Ellen Hopkins
Learning by example is valid, but when you have the information to know that turning in a certain direction can lead you to a very wrong place, most of the "blame" is on the individual. — Ellen Hopkins
I don't believe in God, don't believe in the devil. Unless you want to count my mother. She might be Satan's sister, I suppose. — Ellen Hopkins
Or might the soul clone itself,
create a perfect imitation
of something yet to be
defined? In this way,
can a reflection be altered? — Ellen Hopkins
Without Warning
Sometimes you're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known, and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you. — Ellen Hopkins
Aunt J, I've begged for love for seventeen years. Without you, I would never have found it. — Ellen Hopkins
Maybe the church was right.
Maybe I'm selfish.
Maybe I'm evil.
Maybe I'm damned.
I feel like I'm on a tight rope,
barely balancing. I know it's
a long way down and I'm
afraid I'm destined to crash. — Ellen Hopkins
If you will only pause, as you hurry through your days, take a minute to look at passersby, beyond cursory skin-deep analysis, all the way into their eyes, what beauty you might find woven from the life threads there. — Ellen Hopkins
Addiction is rarely conquered alone. — Ellen Hopkins
You can't walk away from someone you love, leave them drowning in your desertion. If love has no more meaning than that, you can keep it. I don't want it now or ever again. Don't want to hear the word or wear its scars. — Ellen Hopkins
Tony's Kiss
Is like no other kiss, ever.
It wants, but does not demand.
It asks, but doesn't take.
It gives, and pleads for more.
It is filled with desire,
but also curiosity,
and it teaches me that a kiss should
come gift wrapped, not stripped naked. Most of all,
it makes me want another kiss
exactly like this one. — Ellen Hopkins
Built by pain and drive. — Ellen Hopkins
I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air. — Ellen Hopkins
I'm okay. Except..." God! "I totally want you. — Ellen Hopkins
Don't make me laugh, I'd much rather cry. — Ellen Hopkins
Then I said it. He said it too. I love you. And everything that went before meant nothing. — Ellen Hopkins
How can I respect a house where women are no more than servants? How can I respect rules laid down by a phantom father? How can I respect a man who ... — Ellen Hopkins
Will you reach heaven?
Brighter now,
white and beautiful.
You hurry in that direction.
Your eyes acquiesce,
and open to discover ...
you're back in hell, after all. — Ellen Hopkins
It wants, but does not demand. It asks, but doesn't take. It gives, and pleads for more. It is filled with desire, but also curiosity, and it teaches me that a kiss should come gift wrapped, not stripped naked — Ellen Hopkins
Her halo was never gold, or it couldn't have rusted so completely. — Ellen Hopkins
I know it may sound weird, but looking death square in the eye made me question the unknown. What happens after we exhale our last breathe? Do we really see an otherworldly light? Does God send angels to guide us home? Or when our eyes close, do we forfeit sight? And will our earthly spirits forever roam? — Ellen Hopkins
Forgive myself for what, exactly, you bastard internal voice? — Ellen Hopkins
Holy effing moly. — Ellen Hopkins
Life is full of choices. We don't always make good ones. It seems to Kristina you gotta be crazy to open your windows, invite the demons in. Bree throws rocks at the feeble glass, laughs — Ellen Hopkins
I know he wants to get serious. He's definitely not a player, not a poser, not a loser, not a user. — Ellen Hopkins
I wanted to meet the monster.
Why go down if you can go up? — Ellen Hopkins
But hey,
I'm not exactly sold on the idea that love is, in fact, real. Will it find me one day, overtake me, infiltrate my life like sunlight snakes through the cold of morning? Can love thaw me? will it ever? — Ellen Hopkins