Julia Hoban Willow Quotes & Sayings

I just figured out why someone would want to make the first mirror ... I think some lover wanted his beloved to see how she appeared to him. He wanted her to be able to see herself the way that he did. — Julia Hoban

Where hope would otherwise become hopelessness, it becomes faith. — Robert Breault

We don't know what drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly, sustained. — John Barth

No one can make us angry. It is our choice. — Thomas S. Monson

It's hard to keep something a secret when it's written all over you body. — Julia Hoban

It is still strange to see the skyline. I have never seen an absence that's so physical. It's possible I will see the absence for the rest of my life, even when there is something else there. Which is ok. The thing to remember when looking at an absence is that you are standing outside of it. — David Levithan

The experience of a sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. — Pema Chodron

I need a Kleenex." She sniffs.
Guy disengages his hands from hers, takes the hem of his
sweatshirt, and wipes her nose with it.
"That's romantic," she says, embarrassed.
"Well, it is sort of, because I wouldn't do it for anybody else
in the world. — Julia Hoban

Every lineament of the girl's wasted body is a testament to her inner turmoil. Willow can only imagine what kind of pain she must be in to destroy herself that way. She knows there's something ironic in her compassion for the other girl, but she can't help feeling that this utter mortification of the flesh is far worse than anything that she herself has done. — Julia Hoban

Inspiration doesn't lie on the sleeves of great leaders, but it is instead hidden in the hearts of the simple souls who seldom show the potential they carry with them. — Sanhita Baruah

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly. — Julian Barnes

But ... Well, have you ever done this with anyone else?"
"Never." He pulls her down so that she is lying on the window seat.
"Good." Willow is surprised that shy as she indeed is, she isn't embarrassed to be naked in front of him. Maybe this is because in every other important way she had already been.
"Have you?" Guy lies down on his side next to her.
"No!"
"Good." He kisses her hair, her face, her neck. — Julia Hoban

Her brother is crying, he is wretched and broken. Though his sobs are barely audible, he is weeping with absolute and total abandon. Such a naked display of emotion is both alarming and frightening. — Julia Hoban

And I was right to be ... to become a cutter, because maybe you think this doesn't look so bad, that girls cry, that people cry, but you'd be wrong, you'd be so wrong, anything ... anything at all ... would feel better than this does. I'm ... sorry." She tries to catch her breath. "I'm sorry to be putting you through this ... "
"Willow, you haven't put me through anything. — Julia Hoban

Her hand closes on smooth metal. Her fingers test the sharpness of the edge. Perfect. It's a fresh blade.
The girls' voices rustle in her head. Their clamoring pushes out all rational thought. She rolls up her sleeve.
The bite of the blade kills the noise. It wipes out the memory of those staring faces. Willow looks at her arm, at the life springing from her. Tiny pinpricks of red that blossom into giant peonies. — Julia Hoban

He had decided that what was going on was that everybody was very carefully avoiding paying attention to what was going on. — Robert Anton Wilson

I don't really manage my time. I really just wait until I'm inspired to do something. And when I'm inspired to do something, it just happens. — Steve Martin

But with you, well, the things you say ... You do get it, and that does make me feel ... better." Willow can feel herself starting to blush.
"You blush a lot," Guy says after a moment.
"I can't help it."
"Well, don't help it. I mean, blushing. I think that's sweet."
"Oh."
"And I'm really happy if anything I do makes you feel any better. — Julia Hoban

If nothing else in life, I want to be true to the things I believe in, and quite simply, to what I'm all about. I know I'd better, because it seems whenever I take a false step or two I feel the consequences. — Peyton Manning

If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.. — Robert Green Ingersoll

She starts to roll down her sleeve, but Guy stops her. He holds her arm, looks at her cuts, traces the pattern of her razor marks with his hand.
"Don't, it's ... "
Willow stops speaking as he bends his head and kisses her scars.
She knows she should tell him to stop, but she can't because she wants him to go on forever. She knows too that she will probably pay for this feeling with other less pleasurable ones, but still she can't bring herself to pull her arm away. — Julia Hoban

Systems thinkers see the world as a collection of stocks along with the mechanisms for regulating the levels in the stocks by manipulating flows. — Donella H. Meadows

Every creative act is an act of hypocrisy and violence. You may have to think about it for a while, but I am sure you can discover your own. — Mary Ruefle

We'd already talked in the stacks, and I knew you were different from any other girl I'd met. And you told me that your parents were dead, and I thought that you were so ... lost and vulnerable. So when I saw you in the physics lab ... and I saw you try and take care of someone that you thought who had been through what you'd been through; could be that ... well, generous, and thoughtfull ... " Guy said.
"But you hardly knew me." said Willow
"I know ... I didn't know that we'd even talk again, or that if we did, if we'd get along, or maybe you were seeing someone else ... I just knew that the way you tried to protect someone's life that, especially given your situation ... I just ... I though that you had to be the most special girl I would ever meet ... — Julia Hoban

The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn't that, he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is about the same: that is, he is made to suffer. — Mark Twain

With 'The Tudors,' I had a huge amount of material, I mean so many books and so much stuff about what they really said. So, in a way it was kind of trying to strip it out and find the stories inside all this material. — Michael Hirst

Willow sees her before any of the others. A walking skeleton, the victim of some terrible wasting disease, like something out of the history books, a death camp survivor. It takes Willow a moment to realize that the girl is none of those things. She's just a girl, a girl like Willow, who's chosen to inflict terrible pain on herself. Only this girl's weapon isn't a razor, it's starvation. — Julia Hoban