Mafi Quotes & Sayings

They say our world used to be green. Our clouds used to be white. Our sun was always the right kind of light. — Tahereh Mafi

I push the walls back, making more space in the room until I can finally breathe. Until I'm able to stand. — Tahereh Mafi

I fold myself into a corner of this room and bury my head in my knees and rock back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and I wish and I wish and I wish and I dream of impossible things until I've cried myself to sleep.
I wonder what it would be like to have a friend.
And then I wonder who else is locked in this asylum. I wonder where the other screams are coming from.
I wonder if they're coming from me. — Tahereh Mafi

I'm not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say."
"Yeah, and maybe I'm just saying that you have no idea what you're saying."
"Whatever."
"Don't whatever me - "
"Whatever," I say again.
"Oh my God," Kenji says to no one in particular. "I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked."
"You couldn't kick my ass if I had ten of them."
Kenji laughs out loud. "Is that a challenge?"
"It's a warning," I say to him.
"Ohhhhhh, so you're threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?"
"Shut up, Kenji."
"Shut up, Kenji," he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me. — Tahereh Mafi

My words wear no parachutes as they fall out of my mouth. — Tahereh Mafi

No one has touched me in 264 days. Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I'm not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I'm so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I'm almost certain I'm going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me. It doesn't seem impossible. I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me. "Aren't you hungry?" His voice is lower now, a little worried now. I've been starving for 264 days. "No." The word is little more than a broken breath as it escapes my lips — Tahereh Mafi

Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh. — Tahereh Mafi

This girl is destroying me. — Tahereh Mafi

I don't know how to hate you anymore. Even though I want to and I know I should but I just can't." - Juliette — Tahereh Mafi

It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world. — Tahereh Mafi

He's kissing me like he's lost me and he's found me and I'm slipping away and he's never going to let me go. I want to scream, sometimes, I want to collapse, sometimes, I want to die knowing that I've known what it was like to live with this kiss, this heart, this soft soft explosion that makes me feel like I've taken a sip of the sun, like I've eaten clouds 8,9, and 10. — Tahereh Mafi

I've been stealing your soaps," I
tell him.
He raises his eyebrows at me.
"Sorry." I feel myself blush.
"Don't feel bad," he says, serious
so suddenly. "You can have anything of
mine you want. You can have all of it. — Tahereh Mafi

I'm angry and mean and I can't be bothered to care. — Tahereh Mafi

More people have died at the end of a loaded gun than from an empty stomach. — Tahereh Mafi

It's incredible how someone can look so right and feel so wrong. Kent is a lucky bastard. — Tahereh Mafi

And I can't help but be amazed at the power such small, unassuming animals wield over us; they so easily break down our defenses. — Tahereh Mafi

The darkness is choking me. — Tahereh Mafi

I wish I could love you less — Tahereh Mafi

A handful of letters doesn't always make a word, love. — Tahereh Mafi

I never thought it would get this bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily removable, easily destroyed for disobedience.
We have lost our humanity. — Tahereh Mafi

I pull him closer, grab a fistful of his jacket and kiss him as hard as I can, my fingers already attempting to release the first of his buttons. Warner grips my hips and allows his hands to conquer my body. He tastes peppermint, smells like gardenias. His arms are strong around me, his lips soft, almost sweet against my skin. There's an electric charge between us I hadn't anticipated. My head is spinning. His lips are on my neck, tasting me, devouring me, and I force myself to think straight. — Tahereh Mafi

Everything seems to be catching up with me at once. My failures. My cowardice. My stupidity. Sometimes I'm just so tired of this life. — Tahereh Mafi

Love, it turned out, could both hurt and heal. — Tahereh Mafi

I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me. — Tahereh Mafi

I'm not falling for Warner," I say quietly.
"Sure you aren't."
"I'm not," I insist. "I'm just
I don't know." I sigh. "I don't know what's happening to me."
"They're called hormones. — Tahereh Mafi

Never forget," I say, quietly now, "that if I wanted your job, I could have it. And never forget that the man you so eagerly serve is the same man who taught me how to fire a gun when I was nine years old. — Tahereh Mafi

I press my palm to the small pane of glass and feel the cold clasp my hand in a familiar embrace. We are both alone, both existing as the absence of something else. — Tahereh Mafi

I clung to something like hope, to a thread of maybes and possiblys and perhapses. — Tahereh Mafi

You never asked for anything from anyone. But no one ever gave you a chance. — Tahereh Mafi

You have to deal with who you are and you have to figure out how to live with it. — Tahereh Mafi

I'm so thirsty I could inhale a waterfall. — Tahereh Mafi

Tell me what you want" he [Warner] says desperately. "Tell me what to do," he says, "and I'll do it. — Tahereh Mafi

The warm water makes me feel weightless. It carries my burdens for me, understanding that I need a moment to relieve my shoulders of this weight. To close my eyes and relax. — Tahereh Mafi

How is it possible, that I'm this close to you and it's killing me that you're still so far away? — Tahereh Mafi

What a beautiful disaster. — Tahereh Mafi

My thoughts shock me. There's a desperate heat in the pit of my stomach I wish I could ignore. There are butterflies in my chest I wish I could explain away. There's an ache in my core that I'm unwilling to name.
Beautiful.
He's so beautiful>.
I must be insane. — Tahereh Mafi

I wonder at my incapacity for easy banter, smooth conversation, empty words to fill awkward moments. I don't have a closet filled with umms and ellipses ready to insert at the beginnings and ends of sentences. I don't know how to be a verb, an adverb, any kind of modifier. I'm a noun through and through. — Tahereh Mafi

I have no idea if Kenji is dead. — Tahereh Mafi

I begin to wonder if it's coincidence that the one person most unafraid to touch me is a monster himself. — Tahereh Mafi

One word, two lips, three four five fingers form a fist.
One corner, two parents, three four five reasons to hide.
One child, two eyes, three four seventeen years of fear.
A broken broomstick, a pair of wile faces, angry whispers, locks on my door. — Tahereh Mafi

But the moments the seconds the minutes the hours the days and years become one big mistake, one extraordinary opportunity slipped right through our fingers because we couldn't decide, we couldn't understand, we needed more time, we didn't know what to do.
We don't even know what we have done. — Tahereh Mafi

The scientists are wrong. The world is flat. I know because I was tossed right off the edge — Tahereh Mafi

Castle's easy grin dances into the room before he does. — Tahereh Mafi

Things are changing, but this time I'm not afraid. This time I know who I am. This time I've made the right choice and fighting for the right team. I feel safe. Confident — Tahereh Mafi

Because I want her.
Now.
Here.
Everywhere.
I want nothing between us.
I want her clothes off and the lights on and I want to study her. I want to unzip her out of this dress and take my time with every inch of her. — Tahereh Mafi

These words are vomit. — Tahereh Mafi

It's 2 lines. Font like a typewriter inked across the very bottom of his torso.
hell is empty
and all the devils are here
Yes. Interesting. Yes. Sure. I think I need to lie down. "Books," he's saying, pulling his boxer-briefs up and rezipping his pants, "are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them. Tattoos, for example, are very hard to forget. — Tahereh Mafi

How can you be ashamed of an attempt to be better? — Tahereh Mafi

Part of me wishes I could see him; I want to make sure he's really going to be okay, that he's recovering well and eating enough and getting sleep at night. But another part of me is afraid to see him now. Because seeing Adam means saying good-bye. It means recognizing that I can't be with him anymore and knowing that I have to find a new life for myself. Alone. — Tahereh Mafi

I don't have the time, the energy, or the interest to deal with your problems. — Tahereh Mafi

Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age. They take root in us as we grow, settling deep into our souls. The good words plant well. They flourish and find homes in our hearts. They build trunks around our spines, steadying us when we're feeling most flimsy; planting our feet firmly when we're feeling most unsure. But the bad words grow poorly. Our trunks infest and spoil until we are hollow and housing the interests of others and not our own. We are forced to eat the fruit those words have borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around our necks, suffocating us to death, one word at a time. — Tahereh Mafi

You deserve so much more than charity," he said, his chest heaving. "You deserve to live, You deserve to be alive. — Tahereh Mafi

I wanted to rupture his spleen. — Tahereh Mafi

Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me, bowing my will to its whispers until I was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too terrified to disagree. — Tahereh Mafi

I loved making you mad," he says to me, his eyes wicked. "I love making you mad. — Tahereh Mafi

He held you captive and managed to fall in love with you in the process. — Tahereh Mafi

Laughter comes from living. — Tahereh Mafi

Swallow the tears back often enough and they'll start feeling like acid dripping down your throat. — Tahereh Mafi

I always wonder about raindrops.
I wonder about how they're always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It's like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn't seem to care where the contents fall, doesn't seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.
I am a raindrop.
My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab. — Tahereh Mafi

His ignorance makes him vulnerable. — Tahereh Mafi

Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. sometimes it just won't let go. — Tahereh Mafi

but I melt until I'm a handful of hot butter dripping down his body. — Tahereh Mafi

My body is cracking from the pain I have swallowed so Many times, heaving with sobs I can no longer suppress, my dignity dissolving in my tears, the agony of these past few days ripping my skin to shreds. — Tahereh Mafi

It's that terrible moment when you're sitting still so still so still because you don't want them to see you cry you don't want to cry but your lips won't stop trembling and your eyes are filled to the brim with please and I beg you and please and I'm sorry and please and have mercy and maybe this time it'll be different but it's always the same. There's no one to run to for comfort. No one on your side. — Tahereh Mafi

I am going to MURDER YOU - "
"No," he says, pointing at me as he shifts backward again. "Bad Juliette. You don't like to kill people, remember? You're against that, remember? You like to talk about feelings and rainbows - — Tahereh Mafi

Adam stares at me so long I begin to blush. He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. Blue blue blue boring into me. His voice is deep, steady. "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh."
He's so excruciatingly correct I don't know how to respond except with the truth. My smile is tucked into a straight line. "Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before. — Tahereh Mafi

Very well then, Ms. Ferrars. Good luck, and godspeed. Our world is in your hands. — Tahereh Mafi

Winston points at my face. His eyes are a little unfocused, and he has to blink a few times before saying, I like you. It's pretty nice you're not dead. — Tahereh Mafi

Something in my patience snaps.. 'I'd really rather die than eat your food food and hear you call me 'love'... He holds my gaze for a few infinitely long seconds before he pulls a gun out of jis jacket pocket, He fires. — Tahereh Mafi

She is scared and broken, yes. But she is also angrey
and stunningly beautiful. I'm certain I've never seen such a beautiful creature in my life. — Tahereh Mafi

I want to leave this worn body behind, but my chains are too many, my weights too heavy. This life is all that's left of me. And I know I won't be able to meet myself in the mirror for the rest of the day — Tahereh Mafi

Maybe you should accept the fact that you've tried to be someone you're not for so long that no matter what you did, those bastards were never happy. They were never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did they? — Tahereh Mafi

I am enough, and I always will be. — Tahereh Mafi

I've fallen for her ... So hard. I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have if felt this. Nothing like this ... I've known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching. Love is a heartless bastard. I'm driving myself insane. — Tahereh Mafi

The man is moody as hell."

"I am not moody - "

"Yeah, bro." Kenji puts his utensils down. "You are moody. It's always 'Shut up, Kenji.' 'Go to sleep, Kenji.' 'No one wants to see you naked, Kenji.' When I know for a fact that there are thousands of people who would love to see me naked - — Tahereh Mafi

I see women and children starving to death, homes destroyed and buried in rubble, the countryside a burnt landscape, its only fruit the rotting flesh of casualties. I see dead dead dead red and burgundy and maroon and the richest shade of your mother's favorite lipstick all smeared into the earth. — Tahereh Mafi

Stop letting everyone else tell you what's wrong and right. Stake a claim! You cower when you could conquer. — Tahereh Mafi

I don't understand - why won't you talk to me?
You sit in the corner all day and write in your book and look at everything but my face. You have so much to say to a piece of paper but I'm standing right here and you don't even acknowledge me. Juliette, please - — Tahereh Mafi

Adam leans into my ear. I feel the soft whispers of his breath just before he begins to speak.
"You guys are disgusting, you know that, right?"
I look up, startled, and find Kenji frozen midmovement, his spoon halfway to his mouth, his head cocking in our direction. He gestures with his spoon at our faces. "What the hell is this? You guys playing footsie under the table or someshit? — Tahereh Mafi

I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me. — Tahereh Mafi

You are so confident," he says to me. "You're stubborn and resilient. So brave. So strong. So inhumanly beautiful. You could conquer the world. — Tahereh Mafi

There are secrets everywhere. Answers nowhere. — Tahereh Mafi

He pulls me close, too close. I'm frozen in five hundred layers of fear. Stunned in grief, in disbelief. — Tahereh Mafi

You broke up with me. You gave up on us - on our entire future together. You basically reached in and ripped my heart out and now you're asking me if I'm okay? How the hell am I supposed to be okay, Juliette? What kind of question is that? — Tahereh Mafi

Compliments are not things I know how to process. — Tahereh Mafi

Only my dead body would allow her to walk out that door." Warner exercises his jaw and spits blood on the floor.
"You, I would kill for pleasure," he says to Adam. "But Juliette is the one I want forever. — Tahereh Mafi

Do you like Shakespeare?" he asks me. An odd segue.
I shake my head. "All I know about him is that he stole my name and spelled it wrong. — Tahereh Mafi

The soldiers stomp stomp stomp through the rain, crushing leaves and fallen snow under their feet. Their hands are wrapped in gloves wrapped around guns that could put a bullet through a million possibilities. — Tahereh Mafi

He's on his knees.
I bite back the moan caught in my throat just before he lifts me up and carries me to the bed. He's on top of me in an instant, kissing me with a kind of intensity that makes me wonder why I haven't died or caught on fire or woken up from this dream yet. He's running his hands down my body only to bring them back up to my face and he kisses me once, twice, and his teeth catch my bottom lip for just a second and I'm clinging to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and running my hands through his hair and pulling him into me.
He tastes so sweet. So hot and so sweet and I keep trying to say his name but I can't even find the time to breathe, much less to say a single word. — Tahereh Mafi

Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never, ever sleeps. — Tahereh Mafi

My eyes break open. Two shattered windows filling my mouth with glass. — Tahereh Mafi

Don't underestimate me. — Tahereh Mafi

You're perfect," I tell him, so overcome I forget myself. "All of you. Your entire body.
Proportionally. Symmetrically. You're absurdly, mathematically perfect. It doesn't even make sense
that a person could look like you, — Tahereh Mafi

I know exactly what my future looks like and I'm okay with it. I'm happy to live in solitude. I'm not afraid of spending the rest of my life in the company of my own person. I do not afraid loneliness. — Tahereh Mafi

Hope will break your heart all over again — Tahereh Mafi

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart. — Tahereh Mafi

I need air. I need a new brain. I need to jump out a window and catch a ride with a dragon to a world far from here. — Tahereh Mafi

Juliette, love," he says to me, still holding my eyes. "You have just started a war. — Tahereh Mafi

We're drenched in water and beauty and the exhilaration of a moment I never knew was possible. — Tahereh Mafi

I have no idea what to expect I have no idea what my life will be like in this new place and I'm being nailed in the stomach by every exquisite embellishment, every lavish accessory, every superfluous painting, molding, lighting, coloring of this building. I hope the whole thing catches fire. — Tahereh Mafi