Quotes from The Nature of Jade

“It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn't have something in the first place. I guess that's what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Your sibling, after all, is the only other person in the world who understands how fucked up your parents made you.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Are you getting your period?" She narrows her eyes.
No! God. I hate that. I hate when every negative act is blamed on your period." Sometimes bitchiness is just bitchiness, happily unattached to anything hormonal. It should get full credit.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Or so we don't think about how we're just vulnerable specks trying to survive on a violent, tumultuous planet, at the mercy of hurricanes and volcanoes and asteroids and terrorists and disease and a million other things. We concentrate on having little thoughts so we don't have BIG THOUGHTS. . . . You've got to ignore the one big truth - life is fatal.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Just that, is one of those uncommon moments, those times when you don't wish for something else, for even one thing to be different; when you have no other needs or worries, where your insides are calm, and everything you were ever restless about, anything that had ever given you angst, is quieted to stillness. No steel ball in your chest, no breathless fear. No blue numbness of nearly passing out, no nagging doubts of the backstage mind. All of that, forgotten. It is just rightness, so rare.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“I don't want her in my car." says Jenna.
I don't want her in my life." says Michael.
I hope she chokes on her fucking Frappuccino." says Akello.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Ah. Falling in love is such a magical time." "We just met, Damian. I'm not in love." Damian laughs. "I am going to have you clean the stables today, since you are already so full of shit.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“It makes you realize how basically everything we do comes down to a) mating or b) competing for resources. It’s just like Animal Planet, only we’ve got Cover Girl and Victoria’s Secret instead of colored feathers and fancy markings, and the violence occurs at the Nordstrom’s Half-Yearly Sale.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“I may be nervous," I say.
"Okay, I'm really glad you said that, because I just went to the back room to put on more deodorant." Sebastian says.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Stereotypes are fast and easy, but they are lies, and the truth takes its time.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“No, Mom. I said fine."
"It's just your tone."
Ah, yes- the tone. The nasty traitor.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Once, I had to drive Oliver to soccer, was ten minutes late, and learned that there had apparently been a misprint in the Bible on the Ten Commandments thing: Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not be late to soccer. My father was so pissed, I practically had to get the lightning bolt surgically removed from my back.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Most people, it seems like they've only got one part of the equation down. Caring for themselves, or caring for someone else. And I'v learned how important it is to have both.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“She once led this secret uprising to switch the voice boxes of Barbies and G.I. Joes. When they hit the shelves, G.I. Joe said, 'Let's go shopping!' and Barbie said, 'The enemy must be overtaken.'
I laugh. "No way."
"Yes way. Sex-role stereotyping in children's toys, all that.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“You look so good," I say, and s***! Oh god, that's not what I meant. S***! "It looks good. The book.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Have you worked here long?" Sebastian asks.
Just a few months," I say. "Do you come here a lot?" As if you don't know, Jade.
I used to come every day, or, you know, when I could, I'd bring Bo after work. Or just myself."
At night sometimes. You'd climb the fence. You'd watch the stars. You'd tilt back your head and look at the sky.
You'd think it over, whatever it was.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Hannah and Kayla are talking without saying anything. Their conversation goes like this:
Hannah: Uh-huh.
Kayla: It was like, ugh!
Hannah: I know.
Kayla: Shit. Come on!
Hannah: Well, you know, whatever.
Kayla: I guess, but still.
Hannah: Yeah.
Kayla: You know?
Hannah: Yeah.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“In the two months I had also dated Justin Fellowes, this guy in my Spanish class, though after three weeks we decided we should "see other people," which in my case was a joke, but it beat hearing him remark on everything I ate. 'I don't know why girls are always on a diet,' he'd say when I ordered a Diet Coke, and 'You should watch your starch intake' when I had a muffin.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“When you raise an animal, you live it like your own child.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Someone walking toward you is such a simple, happy-to-be-alive thing.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“You get to thinking that maybe the diving line shouldn't be animals and people but good and bad.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“What happened?" I ask. My heart hurts.
"That big guy," he says. His voice is high and tight. "Number forty-six. Jeez, he just bashed his shoulder right into my chest, and when I was on the ground, he steps on my leg with his cleat." He sniffs hard, rubs his nose on his sleeve, doesn't meet my eyes.
"That bastard," I say. "The minute he gets off the field I'm going to kick him in the balls." Oliver laughs a little, his eyes filling up at the same time. "He'll never know what hit him. His balls are gonna go flying, I promise you that. People will wish they brought their catcher's mitts.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“He's alright. He's fine," Dad says, his usual line whenever Oliver gets hurt. It means: Go away. Don't baby him. Don't show too much compassion. The other dads do this too. It's some kind of group hysteria, based on some fatherly fear that says compassion equals homosexuality.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Onyx is angry," Damian says. "Onyx has a right to be angry. You've got to remember, for many elephants, their life is that of a human in a war-torn country. Ravaged homes, killed relatives, separation," Damian says. Here's another thing I've learned over two months--every elephants here has a sad story. Every captive elephant's story is one of loss and separation. Something to remember every time you see happy people getting elephant rides.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“Thousands of years of tradition. People don't see the humanity that lies in the animals, same as people don't see the animal that is within humans. The first time I saw Jum, she was trying to lift her dead brother up with her trunk. She was trying to get him to stand again. She'd even stuffed grass in his mouth to try to get him to eat”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“I've come to the conclusion that it's all about fear- fear that your kid won't come out on top, be a success. Forcing him into these brutal encounters will a) make a dame sure he is a success, and b) all you to see evidence of that success with the added bonus of a cheering crowd. This means that sports are supported with an almost desperate enthusiasm. The football team gets catered dinners before a fame. Honor Society is lucky if it gets a cupcake. Academic success-forget it. That requires too much imagination. There's no scoreboard.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“…I ignore the message from Jenna, who wants to talk about Kayla and what a bitch she is. I think she actually said "witch" in the voicemail, but if that's what she means, I don't see what a difference the vocabulary makes”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“More than anything, I like just being there while he works, doing what he knows to do, in his own place.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

“I liked the idea of bouncy, open-air Jeeps and I liked the outfits with all the pockets, only I didn't really want to live in Africa and be shot by poachers/get malaria/get stabbed to death.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from The Nature of Jade

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Popular quotes

“Get up at once, you lazy little beast!”
― Roald Dahl, quote from James and the Giant Peach

“Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.
"I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Howl's Moving Castle

“Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow.

The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and entertaining a brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa, near Lake Pontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought to him in that well-remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room,alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her, giving a long account of a persecution to which she had been exposed by her guardian's family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: and she related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to arrive; how she had written time and again, till she became weary and doubtful; how her health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she had discovered the whole fraud which had been practised on them both. The letter ended with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions of undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the unhappy young man. He wrote to her immediately:

I have received yours,—but too late. I believed all I heard. I was desperate. I am married, and all is over. Only forget,—it is all that remains for either of us."

And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St. Clare. But the real remained,—the real, like the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,—exceedingly real.

Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, quote from Uncle Tom's Cabin

“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
― Ralph Ellison, quote from Invisible Man

“Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.”
― Walt Whitman, quote from Leaves of Grass

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