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

“For a long time I’d been fed on the wheat of The Imitation. It was the only book which did me any good, as I hadn’t discovered the treasures of the Gospels. I knew every chapter by heart. I was never without this little book.”
― Thérèse de Lisieux, quote from Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux


“Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end… The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.”
― Joseph Campbell, quote from Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor


“You are America. Yes, you are, my wicked boy. When we flew to New York and drove in on the highway, whatever the highway is, and those graveyards that are surrounded by cars and the traffic, and that was very confusing and frightening to me. I said to Matija, 'I don't like this'. I was crying. Motorized America with all the endless cars that never stop, and then, suddenly, the place of rest is between that. And they are thrown a little here and a little there. It's so very scary to me, so extremely opposite and different that I couldn't understand it. Through you it is all different now. Do you know? Through you I can think of those stones with understading now. I only wish now I went places with you. I was wishing today, all day, thinking of the places."
"Which places?"
"To where you were born. I would have liked to go to the Jersey shore."
"We should have gone. I should have taken you."
Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. The three blind mice.
"Even to New York City. To show it to me through your eyes. I would have liked that. Wherever we went, we always went to hide. I hate hiding. I wouldn't mind to go to New Mexico with you. To California with you. But mainly to New Jersey, to see the sea where you grew up."
"I understand." Too late, but I understand. That we don't perish of understanding everything too late, that is a miracle.”
― Philip Roth, quote from Sabbath's Theater


“I note this hound of thine, Sir Knight," he said to Garion to ease them past an embarrassing moment, "a bitch, I perceive--"
"Steady," Garion said firmly to the she-wolf.
"That is a very offensive term," she growled.
"He didn't invent it. It's not his fault."
"...Canst thou perhaps, Sir Knight, identify her breed?"
"She is a wolf, my Lord," Garion told him.
"A wolf!" the baron exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "We must flee ere the fearsome beast fall upon us and devour us."
It was a bit ostentatious, but sometimes thing like that impress people. Garion reached down and scratched the wolf's ears.
"...Ones advises that you stop that," the wolf told him, "unless you have a paw to spare."
"You wouldn't!" he exclaimed, snatching his hand back.
"But you're not entirely sure, are you?" She bared her teeth almost in a grin.”
― David Eddings, quote from The Seeress of Kell


“In the superficial activity of her life, she was all English. She even thought in English. But her long blanks and darkness of abstraction were Polish.”
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