Quotes from A List of Cages

Robin Roe ·  310 pages

Rating: (9.6K votes)


“Hate ricochets, but kindness does too.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“It's strange how many ways there are to miss someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them. The way everything you said and did was beautiful or entertaining or important. How much you mattered”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“Why is time like that? Why does it slow down in the places you don’t want it to, but it speeds away when you’re happy?”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“Because people heal a whole lot faster when they're with someone who loves them”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“Getting smacked in the face with a Harry Potter book does not qualify as a fight," Charlie says.
"First of all, it wasn't just any Harry Potter book. It was Order of the Phoenix."
Matt gasps. He knows that Order of the Phoenix is the longest and most potentially dangerous of all the Harry Potter books when used as a weapon.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



“If I really had powers, I could turn off pain the way I can shut my eyes. But I can’t. I feel it. Skin doesn’t get thicker. Instead, it remembers.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“when you’re between two shores and no one can see you, you don’t really exist at all.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“And when you smile…my grandmother calls them big-soul smiles. She says some people have souls so big that they spread out, touching everyone they pass.” Emerald wipes her wet face again. “There are different ways to help people, Adam. There are different ways to do good.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“I know what I think, but people don't want you to say what you think. They want you to say what they think. And knowing what that is isn't easy.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“It's strange how many ways there are to miss someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them. The way everything you said and did was beautiful or entertaining or important. How much you mattered.... When you know you're going to tell someone everything, you see your day through your eyes and theirs, as if they're living it alongside you. But when you don't, it isn't only not seeing double--it's not seeing at all. Because if they aren't there, you aren't either.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



“I used to think struggle was what aged you, but if that were the case, Julian should have been a hundred years old. Now I wonder if the opposite is true. Maybe instead of accelerating your age, pain won't let you grow.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“It's strange how many ways there are to miss someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them. The way everything you said and did was beautiful or entertaining or important. How much you mattered.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“She said no one is evil, only unhappy, and unhappiness festers inside like sores.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“I'm dizzy. I'm here. I'm alive.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“When you know you’re going to tell someone everything, you see your day through your eyes and theirs, as if they’re living it alongside you. But when you don’t, it isn’t only not seeing double—it’s not seeing at all. Because if they aren’t there, you aren’t either.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



“Their eyes like safety nets, I can’t fall.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“You don’t really know people when your back is turned.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“There was nowhere to go that me and the pain didn’t follow.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“This part is hardest. A billion years of evolution tells your cells to run. But you can’t run. You have to turn around and face the desert wall.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“Monday is like all Mondays. Like I’m sitting at the bottom of a pool, listening underwater to people living up above.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



“And when you smile…my grandmother calls them big-soul smiles. She says some people have souls so big that they spread out, touching everyone they pass.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“I want my body to be mine again.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“Next time you have to hand something in, just tell me. I can proofread it or whatever." I nod, but I know I won't. If he's being nice enough to offer, I should be nice enough to never do it.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“What keeps you trapped?...What keeps you from living the life you want? What keeps you from being free?”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“But wanting isn't the same as having.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



“Because when you’re between two shores and no one can see you, you don’t really exist at all.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“My mother once said that the planet was like an enormous womb, and every single one of us was a fetus. Death was nothing to be afraid of. It was just birth to another world, and someone would be waiting for us there. Sometimes I try to see this, my mother and father as two newborns holding hands and ejected into this other world. There they are just beginning.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“But whenever I would imagine leaving, I’d see the blue sky like the ocean—no walls or shore or end in sight. And I’d see myself disappear.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“I should be afraid, but I feel empty. I remember my father’s hands. My mother’s hands. What hands are meant to do.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages


“When someone says something, they automatically know what to say back. But for me it's as if the pathway between my brain and mouth is damaged, like a rare form of paralysis.”
― Robin Roe, quote from A List of Cages



About the author

Popular quotes

“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, quote from A Man for All Seasons


“This, for the benefit of those with only a sketchy grasp of football tactics, was a
Dutch invention which necessitated flexibility from all the players on the pitch. Defenders were required to attack, attackers to play in mid-field; it was football’s version of post-modernism, and the intellectuals loved it.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Fever Pitch


“Love is anti-mechanical, anti-materialist: that’s why bad love is still good love. It may make us unhappy, but it insists that the mechanical and the material needn’t be in charge”
― Julian Barnes, quote from A History of the World in 10½ Chapters


“There was no point in wallowing. Magnus refused to
wallow. Wallowing was for elephants, depressing people, and depressing elephants.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from What Really Happened in Peru


“In short, the right given to one man to inflict corporal punishment on another is one of the ulcers of society, one of the most powerful destructive agents of every germ and every budding attempt at civilization, the fundamental cause of its certain and irretrievable destruction.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead


Interesting books

Renegade
(10.4K)
Renegade
by Erica Stevens
Refugee
(7.8K)
Refugee
by Erica Stevens
Camp Half-Blood Confidential
(4.6K)
Camp Half-Blood Conf...
by Rick Riordan
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
(10.9K)
Hegemony or Survival...
by Noam Chomsky
The American
(5.2K)
The American
by Henry James
Fearless Fourteen
(77.7K)
Fearless Fourteen
by Janet Evanovich

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.