Nicola Yoon Quotes & Sayings

You should try it again. The meaning changes every time you read it. — Nicola Yoon

You can't predict the future. It turns out that you can't predict the past either. Time moves in both directions - forward and backward - and what happens here and now changes them both. — Nicola Yoon

Carla lives for cat videos. She thinks they're the only thing the Internet is good for. — Nicola Yoon

You don't exist if no one can see you. — Nicola Yoon

I'm trying to see Olly in his darkened room when the Bundt leaps from the sill and plunges to the ground.
I gasp. Did the cake just commit suicide? — Nicola Yoon

It's hard to come for someplace or someone you're not proud of. — Nicola Yoon

If I could, I would kiss him every second of every day. For all the days. — Nicola Yoon

A Tale of Two Kisses. To Kiss a Mockingbird. As I Lay Kissing. — Nicola Yoon

Maybe there's a version of your life for all the choices you make and all the choices you don — Nicola Yoon

I'm kind of a contagion cryer. You know how when one person starts yawning, everyone else starts yawning too? Or when someone vomits, the smell makes you want to hurl? I'm like that, except with crying. — Nicola Yoon

Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself. — Nicola Yoon

You're just looking for someone to save you. Save yourself. — Nicola Yoon

You'd be broke,' I tell him.
'Broke with money but rich with words,' he counters immediately. — Nicola Yoon

I'm not usually a stalker, and I'm not following her, exactly. I'm maintaining a noncreepy, half-block distance between us. — Nicola Yoon

Human beings are not reasonable creatures. Instead of being rule by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true. — Nicola Yoon

Doomed love is a part of life. — Nicola Yoon

I've read many more books than you. It doesn't matter how many you've read. I've read more. Believe me. — Nicola Yoon

He meant it and he didn't. Both. At the same time.
'It doesn't matter if you meant it or not. This is the life you're living. It's not temporary and it's not pretend and there's no do-over...You don't get to regret us. — Nicola Yoon

We're not meant to be, Daniel. I'm an undocumented immigrant. I'm being deported. Today is my last day in America. Tomorrow I'll be gone. — Nicola Yoon

Maybe we can't predict everything, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It's almost certainly going to be a disaster — Nicola Yoon

How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins? — Nicola Yoon

But a description of a tree is not a tree, and a thousand paper kisses will never equal the feel of Olly's lips against mine. — Nicola Yoon

Did your parents care that he was white?"
"They never met him." I couldn't imagine taking him to meet my dad. Watching them talk to each other would've been tortuous. Also, I never wanted him to see how small our apartment was. In the end, I guess I really didn't want him to know me.
With Daniel, it's different somehow. I want him to see all of me. — Nicola Yoon

Is it always like that?" I ask, breathless. "No," he says. "It's never like that." I hear the wonder in his voice. And just like that, everything changes. — Nicola Yoon

Even I'm surprised by how much I've been feeling for her all day. The thing about falling is you don't have any control on your way down. I — Nicola Yoon

My dad's primary emotion is regret. It's like he made some giant mistake in his past, like he took a wrong turn, and instead of ending up wherever he was supposed to be, he ended up in this life [...] instead. — Nicola Yoon

If I had a suitcase, I would love it. I would shrink-wrap it when I traveled. I would put stickers from every place I'd ever been on it. And when I saw it on the carousel I would grab it with both hands and I'd be so happy to have it because then my adventures would really begin. — Nicola Yoon

All of which isn't to say that Jeremy Fitzgerald did the right thing or the wrong thing. It's only to say this: love always changes everything. — Nicola Yoon

The thing about my mom's Bundts is that they are not very good. Terrible. Actually inedible, very nearly indestructible. Between you and me." - Olly Bright — Nicola Yoon

I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: we change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we'd be immortal. But some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don't renew. They age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly's hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can't have both. — Nicola Yoon

America is the land of opportunity. His children will have more than he once did. — Nicola Yoon

My heart is so full of him. — Nicola Yoon

To grow up is to grow apart. — Nicola Yoon

Madeline: Form of poetry.
Olly: that assumes that I have one
Madeline: You're not a heathen.
Olly: limericks
Madeline: You are a heathen. I'm going to pretend you didn't say that. — Nicola Yoon

Q: How is it possible that humans invented something as amazing as an airplane and something as awful as a nuclear bomb? A: Human beings are mysterious and paradoxical. — Nicola Yoon

Olly: jesus. is there a girl on this planet who doesn't love mr.darcy
Madeline: All girls love Mr. Darcy?
Olly: are you kidding? even my sister loves darcy and she doesn't love anybody
Madeline: She must love somebody. I'm sure she loves you
Olly: what's so great about darcy?
Madeline: That's not a serious question
Olly: he's a snob
Madeline: But he overcomes it and eventually realizes that character matters more than class! He's a man open to learning life's lessons! Also, he's completely gorgeous and noble and brooding and poetic. Did I mention gorgeous? Also, he loves Elizabeth beyond all reason. — Nicola Yoon

Hearts don't break. They just stop working. An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it. — Nicola Yoon

It's a long life to spend doing something you're only meh about. — Nicola Yoon

How is it possible to have an emotion and its opposite at the same time? — Nicola Yoon

I was happy before I met him. But I'm alive now, and those are not the same thing. — Nicola Yoon

Donald is not sure what the universe was trying to tell him by taking away his only daughter, but here is what he learned: no one can put a price on losing everything. And another thing: all your future histories can be destroyed in a single moment. — Nicola Yoon

Area Teen Pretty Sure Day Can't Get Worse, Is Wrong About That — Nicola Yoon

In my white room, against my white walls, on my glistening white bookshelves, book spines provide the only color. The books are all brand-new hardcovers - no germy secondhand softcovers for me. They come to me from Outside, decontaminated and vacuum-sealed in plastic wrap. I — Nicola Yoon

Words, Natasha thinks, should behave more like units of measure. A meter is a meter is a meter. Words shouldn't be allowed to change meanings. Who decides that the meaning has changed, and when? Is there an in-between time when the word means both things? Or a time when the word doesn't mean anything at all? — Nicola Yoon

America's not really a melting pot. It's more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies. — Nicola Yoon

You can't just make people fall in love, right? Love is way more complicated than that. It's not just a matter of choosing a couple of people and making them ask each other some questions, and then love blossoms. The moon and the stars are involved. I'm certain of it. — Nicola Yoon

the norebang we could pretend, but not out here. It's one of the things I like most about New York City. It deflects any attempts you make — Nicola Yoon

There's more to life than being alive. — Nicola Yoon

You're kind of a hopeless romantic," I say. — Nicola Yoon

This is why people touch. Sometimes words are just not enough. — Nicola Yoon

Just because it's the first time doesn't make it less real, does it? Even the universe has a beginning. — Nicola Yoon

[His eyes are] Atlantic Ocean blue, just like he'd said. It's strange because of course I'd known that. But the difference between knowing it and seeing them in person is the difference between dreaming of flying and flight. — Nicola Yoon

My body burns where he doesn't touch, and burns where he does. — Nicola Yoon

Maybe it's better to end things this way. Better to have a tragic and sudden end than to have a long, drawn-out one where we realize that we're just too different, and that love alone is not enough to bind us. I think all these things. I believe none of them. — Nicola Yoon

Well, I think there's something wrong with everyone, don't you? — Nicola Yoon

Some people exist in your life to make it better. Some people exist to make it worse. — Nicola Yoon

This country try to take everything from you. Your language, your food, your children.
Learn how to use chopsticks.
This country can't have everything. — Nicola Yoon

I love the way she seems to feel things with her entire body. I wonder why a girl who is so obviously passionate is so adamantly against passion. — Nicola Yoon

I turn in his arms, thinking how quickly it's become my favourite place in the world. Familiar, foreign, comforting, and thrilling all at once — Nicola Yoon

I've read many, many books involving heartache. Not one has ever described it as little. Soul-shattering and world-destroying yes. Little, no" -Madeline — Nicola Yoon

This is where I would've taken Daniel. I would've told him to write poetry about space rocks and impact craters. The sheer number of actions and reactions it's taken to form our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is astonishing. The number of things that had to go exactly right is overwhelming.

Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale. But falling in love doesn't even begin to compare to the formation of the universe.

It's not even close — Nicola Yoon

Be careful because once you become a part of the world it becomes a part of you, too. — Nicola Yoon

We're kindling amid lightning strikes, a lit match and dry wood, fire danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned. — Nicola Yoon

Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either. — Nicola Yoon

...all teenagers do this. All teenagers separate from their parents. To grow up is to grow apart. — Nicola Yoon

Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life. — Nicola Yoon

My heart's been on my sleeve all day, and it's pretty bruised up right now. — Nicola Yoon

It's not decent to be good at everything. Three or four things at the most. Even that is pushing the bounds of good taste. — Nicola Yoon

Aside from my mom, Carla, and my tutors, the world barely know I exist. I mean, I exist online. I have online friends and my Tumblr book reviews, but that's not the same as being a real person who can be visited by strange boys bearing Bundt cakes. — Nicola Yoon

I didn't know you this morning, and now I don't remember not knowing you. — Nicola Yoon

Chaos theory says that even a small change in initial conditions can lead to wildly unpredictable results. A butterfly flaps her wings now and a hurricane forms in the future. — Nicola Yoon

about everything, about the whole history of the world and all its racism and the unfairness of all of it. — Nicola Yoon

Charlie and Daniel think money and happiness are not related. They don't know what poor is. They don't know that poverty is a sharp knife carving away at you. They don't know what it does to a body. To a mind. — Nicola Yoon

I'm going to do whatever the world tells me to. I'm going to act like I'm in a goddamn Bob Dylan song and blow in the direction of the wind. I'm going to pretend my future's wide open, and that anything can happen. — Nicola Yoon

Practicality is overrated. — Nicola Yoon

Be Brave. Remember, life is a gift. — Nicola Yoon

I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don't want to love him. I really don't. As strategies go, it's not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words. — Nicola Yoon

Wanting leads to more wanting. Desire has no end. — Nicola Yoon

your world can change in a single moment. — Nicola Yoon

Trying not to smile only makes you smile more. — Nicola Yoon

It's not a competition if one person can't even show up for the event. — Nicola Yoon

once lived a girl in a bubble who i suspected was nothing but trouble still i gave her my heart but she blew it apart and left me with nothing but rubble — Nicola Yoon

He leans his forehead against mine. His breath is warm against my nose and cheeks. It's slightly sweet. The kind of sweet that makes you want more. — Nicola Yoon

...no one can put a price on losing everything. — Nicola Yoon

Considering what the future may hold, jumping off this cliff doesn't seem so scary at all. — Nicola Yoon

It's better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don't happen for a reason. They just happen. — Nicola Yoon

For the first time in a long time, I want more than I have. — Nicola Yoon

In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consciousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does it make tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus.

Things happen for a reason, says Natasha's mother. What she means is Fate has a Reason and, though you may not know it, there's a certain comfort in knowing that there's a Plan.

Natasha is different. She believes in determinism- cause and effect. One action leads to another leads to another. Your actions determine your fate. In this way she's not unlike Daniel's dad.

Daniel lives in the nebulous space in between. Maybe he wasn't meant to meet Natasha today. Maybe it was random chance after all.

But.

Once they met, the rest of it, the love between them, was inevitable. — Nicola Yoon

Observable Fact: People aren't logical. — Nicola Yoon

love is just chemicals and coincidence. — Nicola Yoon

Just because you can't experience everything doesn't mean you shouldn't experience anything. — Nicola Yoon

As our eyes meet, I get a kind of deja vu, but instead of feeling like I'm repeating something in the past, it feels like I'm experiencing something that will happen in my future...It's like knowing all the words to a song but still finding them beautiful and surprising. — Nicola Yoon

I once told Olly that I knew my our heart better than I knew anything else, and it's still true. I know the places in my heart, but the names have all changed. — Nicola Yoon

I'm on my way home. I'll remain trapped there forever. I'm alive and don't want to be. — Nicola Yoon

It's hard to love someone who doesn't love you back — Nicola Yoon

If my life were a book and you read it backward, nothing would change. Today is the same as yesterday. Tomorrow will be the same as today. In the book of Maddy, all the chapters are the same.
Until Olly. — Nicola Yoon

For my mom and dad, who taught me about dreams and how to catch them — Nicola Yoon

The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it's a long way down. — Nicola Yoon

Love can kill you and I'd rather be alive than out there living. — Nicola Yoon

What colour are your eyes?
Olly (O): blue
Madeline (M): Be more specific please
O: jesus. girls. ocean blue
M: Atlantic or Pacific
O: atlantic. What colour are yours?
M: Chocolate brown.
O: More specific please
M: 75% cacao butter, dark chocolate brown
O: hehe. nice — Nicola Yoon