Quotes from Identical

Ellen Hopkins ·  565 pages

Rating: (51.1K votes)


“Funny how when your life is mostly bullshit, you turn off feeling.
Sometimes it's hard to turn it back on again.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I'm in love. And I like how that feels. And I hate how that feels. Because love is an invention of fiction writers.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I want the part of you that you refuse to give.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Don't make me laugh, I'd much rather cry.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Happily ever after is a concept I'll never believe in.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



“I do have friends, but they don't know me, only someone I've created to take my place. Someone sculpted from ice. I keep the melted me bottled up inside. Where no one can touch her, until, unbidden, she comes pouring out.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I am different. And I don't understand exactly how. And I don't understand just why.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Because to tell you the truth, most of the time dying seems pretty much like my only means of escape”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“They think old people are lame. But they're not. They're awesome, & I know exactly why I think so. It's because they've lived entire lifetimes. Loved. Laughed. Surrendered. Stumbled. Weathered, beaten, still they don't crumble, not even as they inch toward death.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Yesterday influences today, thus creates tomorrow.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



“I don't love him, & he definitely doesn't love me. Still, he semi-fills a gaping black hole inside me. That place wants love, maybe even needs love, but love is something I"m pretty sure doesn't exist.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“The stars shine as they always do. Same stars. Same sky. Only I am different.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I want to know what it means to be in love. But in my dictionary 'in love' is indefinable.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Despite whoever created it, it's my world, & the only one I've got. Might as well make the best of it, right? Might as well have a little fun while I'm here. Or a lot of fun. Might be dead tomorrow.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Was I saved, or was fate simply too damn busy killing other people that day to catch up to me, too?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



“crawling up into daddy's lap
when dad was still

DADDY

nodding my head against his chest soaking in the comfort of his heart

LISTENING

to the thump...thump
somewhere beneath muscle
and breastbone I remember his arms
their sublime

ENCIRCLING

and the shawdow of his voice
"I love you, little girl.
Put away your bad dreams.
Daddy's here"

I put them away, Until Daddy became my nightmare that one that came

HOME

from work everyday and instead
of picking me up, chased me far
far
away”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“HAPPY EVER AFTER
is a concept I'll never believe
in. I would be content to sample
some little taste of happiness
today, tonight, right now. Though I know
without a doubt that tomorrow
will come saturated with pain.
Life is like that. At least
my life. And honestly, I cant
think of anyone whose life
is any different. The price
tag for joy is misery. [...]”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“That's what I'll be. A silhouette, rarely seen, and yet believed in.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I don't think we'll get caught, but the very possibility is half the fun.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“I want to know living love. And I don't want to wait for it.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



“Afraid to Die Loveless
Because I think if you die without knowing love in this life, that's how you'll spend eternity.
Alone.
Frozen.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Raeanne
Mirror, Mirror

When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.
Her right is my left, double
moles, dimple and all.
My right is her left,
unblemished.

We are exact
opposites,
Kaeleigh and me.
Mirror image identical
twins. One egg, one sperm
one zygote, divided,
sharing one complete
set of genetic markers.

On the outside we are

the same. But not
inside. I think
she is the egg, so
much like our mother
it makes me want to scream.
Cold.
Controlled.

That makes me the sperm
I guess. I take completely
after our father.
All Daddy, that's me.
Codependent.
Cowardly.

Good, bad. Left, right.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne.
One egg, one sperm.
One being, split in two.

And how many
souls?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Evil is not intrinsic. It's fashioned.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“The more I think about it, the more I believe there has to be a subtle yet satisfying method of revenge.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Or might the soul clone itself,
create a perfect imitation
of something yet to be
defined? In this way,
can a reflection be altered?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



“A whole big, giant world full of men. Men with blue eyes. Brown eyes. Green eyes. And indescribable shades in between. Tall men. Short men. Skinny men. Built men. And all combinations thereof. Nice men (so I've heard, but never really seen). Mean men. Decent men, indecent. And who knows which is the best kind to have, to hold, to love? I'd say, with so many men in the world, it would pay to sample a few. Scratch that. More than a few. Lots and lots. And then a few more. And maybe, after years of research, you might find one worth not throwing back. But hey, the fun is in the fishing.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get nice house.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“How odd, to suddenly glimpse a facet of me I didn't know existed. I guess it really isn't all that unusual to surprise oneself with an ugly bit of ego.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Never accept evil as something you must walk with, something you deserve.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical


“Ask me, it's a sin to pervert faith with religion. Despite every church, mosque, & synagogue in it, this is not the world any God worth his salt would have created.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Identical



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About the author

Ellen Hopkins
Born place: in Long Beach, CA. , The United States
Born date March 26, 1955
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"You know."
"Know what?"
"That I only have eyes for you.”
― Khaled Hosseini, quote from A Thousand Splendid Suns


“Like and equal are not the same thing at all.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wrinkle in Time


“And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.”
― J.D. Salinger, quote from The Catcher in the Rye


“There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
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“Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Where’s Susie?”

They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey.

“Buckley,” my father called from the adjoining room, “come play Monopoly with me.”

My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap.

“See this shoe?” my father said.

Buckley nodded his head.

“I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?”

“Susie?” my brother asked, somehow connecting the two.

“Yes, I’m going to tell you where Susie is.”

I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do?

“This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with,” he said. “I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon.”

“Is that a dog?”

“Yes, that’s a Scottie.”

“Mine!”

“Okay,” my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley’s small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. “The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie’s again?”

“The shoe?” Buckley asked.

“Right, and I’m the car, your sister’s the iron, and your mother is the cannon.”

My brother concentrated very hard.

“Now let’s put all the pieces on the board, okay? You go ahead and do it for me.”

Buckley grabbed a fist of pieces and then another, until all the pieces lay between the Chance and Community Chest cards.

“Let’s say the other pieces are our friends?”

“Like Nate?”

“Right, we’ll make your friend Nate the hat. And the board is the world. Now if I were to tell you that when I rolled the dice, one of the pieces would be taken away, what would that mean?”

“They can’t play anymore?”

“Right.”

“Why?” Buckley asked.

He looked up at my father; my father flinched.

“Why?” my brother asked again.

My father did not want to say “because life is unfair” or “because that’s how it is”. He wanted something neat, something that could explain death to a four-year-old He placed his hand on the small of Buckley’s back.

“Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?”

Buckley reached over with his hand and covered the shoe. He looked up to see if his answer was right.

My father nodded. "You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not really understand.

Buckley kept the shoe on his dresser, until one day it wasn't there anymore and no amount of looking for it could turn up.”
― Alice Sebold, quote from The Lovely Bones


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