Quotes from I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson ·  384 pages

Rating: (183.3K votes)


“Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you've been in before - you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“I gave up practically the whole world for you,” I tell him, walking through the front door of my own love story. “The sun, stars, ocean, trees, everything, I gave it all up for you.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“I love you,” I say to him, only it comes out, “Hey.”
“So damn much,” he says back, only it comes out, “Dude.”
He still won’t meet my eyes.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“I didn’t know you could get buried in your own silence.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun



“Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“Quick, make a wish.
Take a (second or third or fourth) chance.
Remake the world.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“When people fall in love, they burst into flames.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“His soul might be a sun. I’ve never met anyone who had the sun for a soul.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“You have to see the miracles for there to be miracles.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun



“Sometimes you think you know things, know things very deeply, only to realize you don’t know a damn thing.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“In one split second I saw everything I could be, everything I want to be. And all that I’m not.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“what is bad for the heart is good for art. The terrible irony of our lives as artists.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“We wish with our hands, that’s what we do as artists.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun



“If bad luck knows who you are, become someone else.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“There should be a horn or gong or something to wake God. Because I’d like to have a word with him. Three words actually: WHAT THE FUCK?!”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“It's never occurred to me that the stars are still up there shining even in the daytime when we can't see them.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“We were all heading for each other on a collision course, no matter what. Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun



“It’s time for second chances. It’s time to remake the world.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“A broken heart is an open heart.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“He's the one. And some thoughts once thought are very hard to unthink.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“And even as I'm kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, I wish I were kissing him, wanting more, more, more, more, like I can't get enough, never will be able to get enough.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“No hot guy should be allowed to have an English accent and drive a motorcycle.
Not to mention wear the leather jacket or sport the cool shades. Hot guys should be forced into footie pajamas.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun



“What if I'm in charge of my own damn light switch?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“He floated into the air high above the sleeping forest, his green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“Maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people," I say. "Maybe we're accumulating these new selves all the time.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


“They do make love stories for girls with black hearts after all. They go like this.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from I'll Give You the Sun


About the author

Jandy Nelson
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Popular quotes

“Why the Romans, Father?” I asked him one afternoon. “Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead,” he answered.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass


“You string people along enough, the string withers, then it breaks - Seamus”
― James Patterson, quote from I, Michael Bennett


“We’re bringing good little people into the world who have a mom and a dad who care about them and love them. They know right from wrong because their parents teach them which is which, and because their parents live by example. Somewhere, there is a reward for us, Joe. We need to believe that. We won’t just be abandoned.”
― C.J. Box, quote from Open Season


“That makes it more difficult to speak of the past, because the memories are apt to turn into the living present.”
― Gerda Weissmann Klein, quote from All But My Life: A Memoir


“A young man came to a sage one day and asked, "Sire, what must I do to become wise?" The sage vouchsafed no answer. The youth after repeating his question a number of times, with a like result, at last left him, to return the next day with the same question. Again no answer was given and the youth returned on the third day, still repeat- ing his question, "Sire, what must I do to become wise?" Finally the'sage turned and went down to a near-by river. He entered the water, bidding the youth follow him. Upon arriving at a sufficient depth the sage took the young man by the shoulders and held him under the water, despite his struggles to free himself. At last, however, he released him and when the youth had regained his breath the sage questioned him: "Son, when you were under the water what did you most desire?" "The youth answered without hesitation, "Air, air! I wanted air!" "Would you not rather have had riches, pleasure, power or love, my son? Did you not think of any of these?" queried the sage. "No, sire! I wanted air and thought only of air," came the instant response. "Then," said the sage, "to become wise you must desire wisdom with as great intensity as you just now desired air. You must struggle for it, to the exclusion of every other aim in life. It must be your one and only aspiration, by day and by night. If you seek wisdom with that fervor, my son, you will surely beeome wise.”
― Max Heindel, quote from The Rosicrucian cosmo-conception: or, Mystic Christianity; an elementary treatise upon man's past evolution, present constitution and future development


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