“This is how we reveal ourselves: these tiny flashes of discomfort, the reactions we can’t hide.”
“Love fails for a million reasons - distance, infidelity, pride, religion, money, illness. Why is this story any more worthy?
It felt like it was. It felt important. Living in this town is suffocating in so many ways.
But if a tree falls in the woods, maybe it makes no sound.
And if a boy falls for the bishop's closeted son, maybe it makes no story.”
“I don’t actually care if you break my heart, Sebastian. I went into this knowing it could happen and I gave it to you anyway. But I don’t want you to break your own. You have so much space in your heart for your church, but does it have space for you?”
“He pauses, and I know what’s coming before he even says it, and it’s like the sun chose this moment to press through the dense branches of the tree. “I’m totally gay.”
“The things that I love about you aren't going to go away when you go on your book tour, and they're not going to go away when you go on your mission. I'll still be here, and I'll still be thinking about all those things. I'll still be working on being a better person, a better friend, a better son. I'll still be wondering what it would be like to be a better boyfriend for you. And you will be on your mission, thinking about how much you wish your weren't gay.”
“He is never going to be here, I thought. He is never coming back.
Was I okay with it? No. But missing him every day for the rest of my life was still easier than the fight Sebastian had: to stuff himself inside a box every morning and tuck that box inside his heart and pray that his heart kept beating around the obstacle. Every day I could go to class as exactly the person I am, and meet new people, and come outside later for some fresh air and Frisbee. Every day I would be grateful that no one who matters to me questions whether I am too masculine, too feminine, too open, too closed.
Every day I would be grateful for what I have, and that I can be who I am without judgment.
So every day I would fight for Sebastian, and people in the same boat, who don’t have what I do, who struggle to find themselves in a world that tells them white and straight and narrow gets first pick in the schoolyard game of life.
My chest was congested with regret, and relief, and resolve. Give me more of those, I thought to whoever was listening—whether it was God, or Oz, or the three sisters of Fate. Give me those moments where I think he’s coming back. I can take the hurt. The reminder that he’s not coming back—and why—will keep me fighting.”
“My brain is such a traitorous beast.”
“Our eyes snag, and hold. His are green and yellow, with these razor-sharp flecks of brown. I feel like I've taken a running leap off a cliff and have no idea how deep the water is.”
“But this is your life, and it will stretch out before you, and you are the only person who can make it whatever you want it to be.”
“Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm given one last perfect moment before I'm sent to purgatory and he;s sent somewhere much, much better.
It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.”
“Maybe I'm crying because I'm terrified that he's come here to do more damage, to reactivate what I feel only to let me down easy again, missionary style.”
“We don't rehash the question of my sexuality, but I feel its presence like a third person in the room, sitting in the dark corner, eavesdropping on our conversation.”
“Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage.
"Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid."
Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me. The feeling makes me uneasy, a dramatic lurch that tells me I need to have him or I won't be okay.”
“He shakes his head, and I think this moment, right here, is when it really hits me that Sebastian's identity isn't queer. It's not gay. It's not even soccer player or boyfriend or son. It’s Mormon.”
“His voice is both low and quiet, and it has this hypnotic rhythm to it. I wonder whether someday he'll give sermons with that voice, whether he'll throw down judgement with that voice.”
“High school is such an incestuous little pool.”
“We're only three class sessions in and I'm already behind? And to hear it from him? This buttoned-up Bible-thumper I can't get out of my head?”
“To her, not packing our lunches every day or joining the PTA is a feminist rallying cry.”
“I am a monster beneath him, with arching hips, an octopus with hands everywhere at once. I don't think anything in the history of time has felt this good.”
“Oh my God, Tanner! Do you really care what kind of underwear he’s got on? Let’s talk about your goddamn outline!”
“You're so lucky and you don't even know it.”
“It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.”
“He's not recruiting me to the oiled-up Gay Bliss Club of Northern Utah, but to the LDS Church.”
“He shakes his head, and I think this moment, right here, is when it really hits me that Sebastian's identity is a queer. It's not gay. It's not even soccer player or boyfriend or son. It’s Mormon.”
“The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies.”
“Vic kept looking at Wilson's wagging jaw and thinking of the multitude of people like him on earth, perhaps half the people on earth were of his type, or potentially his type, and thinking that it was not bad at all to be leaving them. The ugly birds without wings. The mediocre who perpetuated mediocrity, who really fought and died for it. He smiled at Wilson's grim, resentful, the-world-owes-me-a-living face, which was the reflection of the small mind behind it, and Vic cursed it and all it stood for. Silently, and with a smile, and with all that was left of him, he cursed it.”
“Not inventing, and not adopting new ideas, can itself be both dangerous and immoral.”
“If you have seen my YouTube documentary that was the genesis for this book entitled The 2012 Enigma,1 my Web site, Divine Cosmos,2 or some of my television appearances, you probably know I do not believe our future is depressing, terrifying or cataclysmic.”
“We survive in order to struggle. Struggling means we’re winning.”
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.