Quotes from The Sky Is Everywhere

Jandy Nelson ·  288 pages

Rating: (76.7K votes)


“The sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us

grief is a house that disappears
each time someone knocks at the door
or rings the bell
a house that blows into the air
at the slightest gust
that buries itself deep in the ground
while everyone is sleeping

grief is a house where no one can protect you
where the younger sister
will grow older than the older one
where the doors
no longer let you in
or out”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Each time someone dies, a library burns.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“I wish my shadow would get up and walk beside me.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“There were once two sisters
who were not afriad of the dark
because the dark was full of the other's voice
across the room,
because even when the night was thick
and starless
they walked home together from the river
seeing who could last the longest
without turning on her flashlight,
not afraid
because sometimes in the pitch of night
they'd lie on their backs
in the middle of the path
and look up until the stars came back
and when they did,
they'd reach their arms up to touch them
and did.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere



“... if you're someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time, aren't you also someone who knows the best thing can happen at any time too?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“When he plays
all the flowers swap colors
and years and decades and centuries
of rain pour back into the sky”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Remember how it was when we kissed? Armfuls and armfuls of light thrown right at us. A rope dropping down from the sky. How can the word love and the word life even fit in the mouth?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“That's a misconception, Lennie. The sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw. Her particular way of looking at Hamlet or daisies or thinking about love, all her private intricate thoughts, her inconsequential secret musings – they’re gone too. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere



“How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives. I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Oh, God,’ he whispers, reaching his hand behind my neck and bringing my lips to his. ‘Let’s let the whole fucking world explode this time.’
And we do.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“And then he smiles, and in all the places around the globe where it's night, day breaks.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“I know the expression love bloomed is metaphorical, but in my heart in this moment, there is one badass flower, captured in time-lapse photography, going from bud to wild radiant blossom in ten seconds flat.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere



“Our tongues have fallen madly in love and gotten married and moved to Paris.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“That's exactly it—I am crazy sad, and somewhere deep inside, all I want is to fly.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“This is our story to tell. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the story telling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Music: what life, what living itself sounds like.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere



“I always imagined music trapped inside my clarinet, not trapped inside of me. But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks?”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“He murmers into my hair, "Forget what I said earlier, let's stick with this, I might not survive anything more." I laugh. Then he jumps up, finds my wrists, and pins them over my head. "Yeah, right. Totally joking, I want to do everything with you, whenever you're ready, I'm the one, promise?" He's above me, batting and grinning like a total hooplehead.
"I promise," I say.
"Good. Glad that's decided." He raises an eyebrow. "I'm going to deflower you, John Lennon.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Dreams change, yes, that makes sense, but I didn't know dreams could hide inside a person.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere


“I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. You can tell your story any way you damn well please. It’s your solo.”
― Jandy Nelson, quote from The Sky Is Everywhere



Video

About the author

Jandy Nelson
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Major, to what extent did you act upon your feelings for Miss LaRoux?"

"Medium."

"Excuse me?"

"How am I supposed to answer that question?”
― Amie Kaufman, quote from These Broken Stars


“Did the world always mete out just deserts?”
― Patricia Highsmith, quote from The Talented Mr. Ripley


“In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions. Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes - and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission.”
― Barack Obama, quote from The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream


“He saw a chair, and a ship that was not a ship; he saw a man with two shadows, and he saw that which cannot be seen — a concept; the adaptive, self-seeking urge to survive, to bend everything that can be reached to that end, and to remove and to add and to smash and to create so that one particular collection of cells can go on, can move onward and decide, and keeping moving and keeping deciding, knowing that — if nothing else — at least it lives. And it had two shadows, it was two things: it was the need and it was the method. The need was obvious: to defeat what opposed its life. The method was that taking and bending of materials and people to one purpose, the outlook that everything could be used in the fight; that nothing could be excluded, that everything was a weapon, and the ability to handle those weapons, to find them and choose which one to aim and fire; that talent, that ability, that use of weapons. A chair, and”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from Use of Weapons


“Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from Revolution


Interesting books

Dark Force Rising
(42.5K)
Dark Force Rising
by Timothy Zahn
Openly Straight
(19K)
Openly Straight
by Bill Konigsberg
The Lonely Hearts Club
(22.3K)
The Lonely Hearts Cl...
by Elizabeth Eulberg
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
(26.6K)
Behind the Scenes at...
by Kate Atkinson
Men at Arms: The Play
(29K)
Men at Arms: The Pla...
by Terry Pratchett
Assassin's Quest
(90K)
Assassin's Quest
by Robin Hobb

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.