Quotes from Linger

Maggie Stiefvater ·  360 pages

Rating: (137.3K votes)


“...she made her home in between the pages of books.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“This is a love story. I never knew there were so many kinds of love or that love could make people do so many different things.

I never knew there were so many different ways to say goodbye.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“One thousand ways to say good-bye
One thousands ways to cry
One thousand ways to hang your hat before you go outside
I say good-bye good-bye good-bye
I shout it out so loud
Cause the next time that I find my voice I might not remember how.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“You want to talk? Fine. Talk. Tell me something you've never told anybody else.'

I thought for a moment. 'Turtles have the second-largest brains of any animal on the planet.'

It took Isabel only a second to process this. 'No, they don't.'

'I know that's why I've never told anybody that before.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I won't let this be my good-bye. I've folded one thousand paper crane memories of me and Grace, and I've made my wish.
I will find a cure. And then I will find Grace.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



“She loved all the wolves behind her house, but she loved one of them most of all.

And this one loved her back. He loved her back so hard that even the things that weren't special about her became special: the way she tapped her pencil on her teeth, the off-key songs she sang in the shower, how when she kissed him he knew it meant for ever.

Hers was a memory made up of snapshots: being dragged through the snow by a pack of wolves, first kiss tasting of oranges, saying goodbye behind a cracked windshield.

A life made up of promises of what could be: the possibilities contained in a stack of college applications, the thrill of sleeping under a strange roof, the future that lay in Sam's smile.

It was a life I didn't want to leave behind.

It was a life I didn't want to forget.

I wasn't done with it yet. There was so much more to say.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I just looked at her, feeling utterly empty. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to her. My life is in that bed. Please let me stay.
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Aren't you afraid?'
'Of what?'
'Of losing yourself.'
'That's what I'm hoping for.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“What are you wishing for?' Grace interrupted. 'To kiss you,' I said to her.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Right now, it's hard to imagine that it is raining anywhere in the world.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



“I had a weird, empty feeling inside me. Not a bad sort of empty. It was a sort of lack of sensation, like being in pain for a long time and then suddenly realizing that you're not anymore. It was the feeling of having risked everything to be here with a boy and then realizing that he was exactly what I wanted. Being a picture and then finding I was really a puzzle piece, once I found the piece that was supposed to fit beside me.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“He'd only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam's clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark.
It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didn't have what Sam and Grace had. We weren't even close to having it. I didn't think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Come on," Cole said. He looked back over his shoulder at Mr. Brisbane, who was looking at me with a complicated expression as I left. Cole pointed at him and said, "You're a son of a bitch. He belongs here more than you do.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I couldn't imagine anyone ever reading a book enough to make it look like that. It looked like it had been driven over by a school bus after someone had taken a bath with it.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I had this feeling that he and I , in this moment, were a car crash, and instead of putting on the brakes, I was hitting the accelerator.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



“You could write a book about things that you can't find on-line.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I was suddenly overwhelmed by what an incredible person this boy was, standing in front of me, and by the fact that he was mine and I was his.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“You're not that girl,' Cole said, sounding tired. 'Trust me, I've seen enough of them to know. Look. Don't cry. You're not that girl either.'

'Oh yeah? What girl am I?'

'I'll let you know when I figure it out. Just don't cry.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“What were you thinking about? When I came in?"
"Being Sam," I said.
"What a nice thing to be," Grace said. And then she smiled, bigger and bigger, until I felt my expression mirror hers, our noses touching.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“To Grace, these were the things that mattered: my hands on her cheeks, my lips on her mouth. The fleeting touches that meant I loved her.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



“My parents had always been so careful with me, until the day they decided I needed to die.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“There was something awful about terror trapped behind silence.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can.
-Isabel Culpeper”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Most people had an acquired kind of beauty, they became better looking the longer you knew them and the better you loved them, but Cole had unfairly skipped to the end of the game, all jaggedly handsome and Hollywood-looking. Not needing any love to get there.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I walk through the seasons and always the birds
are singing and screaming and keening for love
When you're with me it seems so absurd
that I should be jealous of the jay and the dove.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



“Avoiding a bathtub because your parents tried to kill you in one isn't the same as avoiding your entire life by becoming a wolf.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Because you know that's not how you want it to end. You know I'd love to have you with me, and it will be that way, one day. But this isn't the way it ought to happen.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“I folded myself against her body, breathing in the smell of my new life and matching my heartbeat to hers" Sam, Linger”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“here we were again , always saying good-bye”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger


“Flickering lights
anonymous doors
my heart escaping in drips
i'm still waking up
but she's still sleeping
this ICU is
hotel for the dead”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Linger



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About the author

Maggie Stiefvater
Born place: in The United States
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