Quotes from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I want to sleep, I want dreams to pull me from this world and make me forget. To stop the memories from swirling around me. To put an end to this ache that consumes me.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Suddenly, all I can think about are all the things I don't know about him. All the things I never had time to learn. I don't know if his feet are ticklish or how long his toes are. I don't know what nightmares he had as a child. I don't know which stars are his favorites, what shapes he sees in the clouds. I don't know what he is truly afraid of or what memories he holds closest.
And I don't have enough time now, never enough time. I want to be in the moment with him, feel his body against mine and think of nothing else, but my mind explodes with grief for all that I am missing. All that I will miss. All that I have wasted.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed? What if we are the only ones left -- who will know our stories then? Who will remember those?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“You think you want love, Mary. You think it is this beautiful gift that does nothing but fill you and make you whole. But you are wrong. Love can be cruel and ugly. It can become dark and cause the deepest pain.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I realize that sometimes death comes before you expect it. That while we are rarely prepared for our friends, family and loved ones to die, we are never prepared for our own deaths. Never prepared to reconcile our own regrets.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not," he says, his voice like liquid. "I was bitten during the escape from the house." My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in collapsing on itself.

"I was already dead," he says, opening his eyes.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“We forget that the rest of live can be just as dangerous. I think about how fragile we are here-- like fish in a glass bowl with the darkness pressing in on every side.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Because I do not accept the hand of God; I do not believe in divine intervention or predestination. I cannot believe that our paths are pre-chosen and that our lives have no will. That there is no such thing as choice.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“... If you never try to see [someone] for who they are, then you don't love them enough.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Did you know that when we were kids Cass used to tell me your stories? She used to laugh at you. Not in a mean way, but in the way that Cass used to laugh at everything before...." He gestures around us at our world now.

I shake my head. "I thought Cass never liked my stories. Never remembered them."

"Oh yes, I would beg her to tell me if she had new stories from you."

"Why didn't you ask me yourself?" I whisper.

"Because you were Harry's," he responds.

"Not always."

"Yes, always," he says. "Always in his eyes," he adds in a softer tone.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“When you know love . . . that's what makes life worth it.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“We are our own memory-keepers and we have failed ourselves. It is like that game we played in school as children. Sitting in a circle, one student whispers a phrase into another student’s ear and the phrase is passed around until the last student in the circle repeats what she hears, only to find out it is nothing like what it is supposed to be.

This is our life now.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“It's as if there is infinity between our lips and we will never actually touch. Like math, where dividing by half can last for eternity.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“That's just the way life is. Some days you wake up and the beach is clear and you forget about everything that surrounds us. And some days you wake up and it looks like this. That's the nature of the tides.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“...[F]inding the end of the path [is] not quite as important as the journey to getting there.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“But then he whispers, "It will be okay, Mary." He pulls my head down to his chest and he wraps both his arms around me and all I can think is why can't life just stop here and now and leave us be in this moment.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“As I stare at the blank page, I am at once awash inwords but unable to find the ones I want to use.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I need him with an urgency that I cannot escape.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Every night I drown and every morning I wake up struggling to breathe.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I will always need you," I whisper. "All of this time I've waited for you. And you were never coming for me. Why did you let me wait for you?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“He places his hands over mine, the feeling so warm and familiar. 'Those days back there, in the house. That is my world. That is my truth,' he says. 'That is my ocean.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I know in my life there have been breaches, but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I love you, Mary," he says, and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot. He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my har, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“We are our own memory-keepers, and we have failed ourselves.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“Those days back there, in the house. That is my world. That is my truth," he says. "That is my ocean.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

“I wonder what right we have to believe our childhood dreams will come true.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“Pero también debes aprender a ser humilde cuando no halles la respuesta. En esos momentos mira al cielo. Tu Dios y el mío lo saben todo. Nosotros sólo somos una pequeñez a su lado. Perseguimos la verdad, y Él es la verdad.”
― Gonzalo Giner, quote from The Horse Healer

“You can make yourself crazy, refiguring it all after the fact. You did what you thought was best at the time. You helped a friend. That’s what matters.”
― Craig Lancaster, quote from The Fallow Season of Hugo Hunter

“This is the story of the curse and the kiss, the demon and the girl. It's a love story with dancing and death in it, and singing and souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings.”
― Laini Taylor, quote from Der verbotene Kuss

“Panic reared up through me, hot and blazing and blurry, and that was it.”
― Kendall Kulper, quote from The Witch of Salt and Storm

“Her mental list of items she’d need from her apartment was growing. There were things a girl just couldn’t live without, so Keegan would have to get them when he retrieved Muffin.
“I need another purse. Can you get me my Prada knockoff? It’s in my closet on the shelf. Pink. It’s pink. I got it from a vendor in Manhattan. Jeez he was a tough negotiator, but it was worth the haggling. It’s soooo cute.”

Keegan sighed, raspy and long. “Okay.”

“Oh! And my nail polish. I have two new bottles in the bathroom under the sink in one of those cute organizer baskets, you know? Like the ones you get at Bed Bath and Beyond? God, I love those. Anyway, I need Retro Red and Winsome Wisteria.”

Another sigh followed, and then a nod of consent.

“My moisturizer. I never go anywhere, not even overnight, without my moisturizer. Not that I ever really go anywhere, but anyway I need it, or my skin will dehydrate and it could just be ugly. Top left side of my medicine cabinet.”

“Er, okay.”

“My shoes. I can’t be without shoes. Let’s see. I need my tennis shoes and my white sandals, because I don’t think there’s much hope for these, wouldn’t you say?” Marty looked up at him and saw impatience written all over his face. “And my laptop. I can’t check on my clients without my laptop, and they need me. Plus, there’s that no-good bitch Linda Fisher. I have to watch that she’s not stealing my accounts. Do you have all of that?”

He gave her that stern look again. The one that made her insides skedaddle around even if it was meant in reproach.

“I’m going too far, huh?”

His smile was crooked. “Just a smidge.”
― Dakota Cassidy, quote from The Accidental Werewolf

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.