Quotes from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I don't understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it's all I've ever wanted.
All I've ever known is about leaving or being left.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“It's one thing to know a truth in your head but another to understand it in your heart.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“The broken ones need someone to fight for them even harder.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Life is never that simple. And the fact that it's not that simple to you means only one thing: You're still alive.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“There's one detail I've always remembered: He told me how long it takes the light from the stars to reach through space to us.
How most of the points of light we see actually no longer exist. We're just seeing the remnants of what was-- ghosts of what use to be.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Sometimes life isn't about the end. It's not always about tomorrow and the day after that-what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it's about today...Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde. We could get sick or be injured or anything else. That's the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I stare at the way the tracks of her tears break across her jaw and along her neck, at how it looks like her face, once shattered, has been carefully put back together. And I wonder if that’s what my scars really are: proof that I’ve put myself back together again.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“What matters is what we do with the life we have.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I feel as though I'm a storm inside and the waves of it can be seen in my eyes.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“The earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothingness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything- all of us will simply cease to be.

They'll find peace only when we're all dead.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Knowing that this is what it means to live. That this love, this need is what drives us to push and fight and build and grow. That as long as there's hope and love in this world, there will always be the living.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Do you ever think it's the dead that have the happy ending? Just they don't have to worry about surviving."
"But they're dead," he says
"Yeah. That means they don't have to remember anything."
Elias shakes his head. "That means they can't ever love."
I snort. "So they don't know loss.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I just sat there, staring out towards the darkness of the ocean and the starlight flashing off the crests of the waves and knew that we were all part of this bigger whole. That somehow I mattered in the course of things and a part of me would always have left its mark on this world.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“It’s not always about tomorrow and the day after that—what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it’s about today.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Always," I tell him. He catches his breath and I lean away until I can see his eyes. "I'm scared of losing my heart to you. But I think it's a risk I'm willing to take.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I catch my breath but he's not finished. "I love you, Annah. And if you're willing to risk everything to be with me, then I'm willing to risk everything to be with you. I'm going to keep fighting for you, every day of my life. If you'll have me.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“You're stubborn- anyone ever tell you that before?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Do you think the dead don’t know what they’ve lost? Don’t you ever wonder why they seek human flesh? That maybe it’s their way of believing again? Of living again—if even for that one pure moment that blood pulses inside their mouths?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Broken things can be made whole again. Perhaps not as they were before, but maybe stronger this time.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“But I don't know how to tell him all this. That I'm scared and I don't know how to be normal. I'm broken, just like him, and I'm not sure I can fix myself.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“...I realized that life isn't something to be scared of. That you don't have to hold on so tightly that you can't breathe.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“Every day, the pain of that moment has scored through me. The humiliation and anger and misery and rejection. So many emotions that churn over me, always forcing me to feel it all fresh again and again - never in my life had I felt so ugly and unwanted.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.

And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.

The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I want to raise my hand to his cheek. I want to tell him it's okay. That it's pretty here in my head and it doesn't hurt.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“How did he change? What was he like before?" ...

"He was happy before.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“As long as there’s hope and love in this world, there will always be the living”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“We're the winners because we get to live. Because we get to survive. Despite the pain of this life, we get to feel.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“—En ese momento noté que había cometido el error más grande en mi vida. Noté que no soy nada sin ti. No tiene sentido estar vivo si no puedo amarte.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

“I've let the day-to-day existence of life blind me to dreams.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dark and Hollow Places

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