Quotes from Thirteen Reasons Why

Jay Asher ·  288 pages

Rating: (617.7K votes)


“You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“You can't stop the future
You can't rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
...is to press play.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“A lot of you cared, just not enough.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why



“If my love were an ocean,
there would be no more land.
If my love were a desert,
you would see only sand.
If my love were a star-
late at night, only light.
And if my love could grow wings,
I'd be soaring in flight.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have is...now.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don't understand. Thoughts that aren't even true—that aren't really how we feel—but they're running through our heads anyway because they're interesting to think about.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“ If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore.
But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“It's hard to be disappointed when what you expected turns out to be true.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why



“Soul Alone by Hannah Baker

I meet your eyes
you don't even see me
You hardly respond
when I whisper
hello
Could be my soul mate
two kindred spirits
Maybe we're not
I guess we'll never
know

My own mother
you carried me in you
Now you see nothing
but what I wear
People ask you
how I'm doing
You smile and nod
don't let it end
there

Put me
underneath God's sky and
know me
don't just see me with your eyes
Take away
this mask of flesh and bone and
See me
for my soul

alone”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“When you try rescuing someone and discover they can't be reached, why would you ever throw that back in their face?”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had, or maybe still had but that they didn't agree with.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Like driving along a bumpy road and losing control of the steering wheel, tossing you—just a tad—off the road. The wheels kick up some dirt, but you're able to pull it back. Yet no matter how hard you try to drive straight, something keeps jerking you to the side. You have so little control over anything anymore. And at some point, the struggle becomes too much—too tiring—and you consider letting go. Allowing tragedy... or whatever... to happen.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why



“A flood of emotions rushes into me. Pain and anger. Sadness and pity. But most surprising of all, hope.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I'm listening to someone give up. Someone I knew—someone I liked. I'm listening... but still, I'm too late.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“You can hear rumors. But you can't know them.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true—that aren’t really how we feel—but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about.

If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why



“That's why you did it. You wanted your world to collapse around you. You wanted everything to get as dark as possible.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal to you Zach. But now, I hope you understand. My world was collapsing. I needed those notes. I needed any hope those notes might have offered. And you? You took that hope away. You decided I didn’t deserve to have it. ”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I can't. You can't rewrite the past.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party. Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“I’m sorry.” Once again, those were the words. And now, anytime someone says I’m sorry, I’m going to think of her.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why



“But sometimes there’s nothing left to do but move on.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“Because when you're posed, you know someone's watching. You put on your very best smile. You let your sweetest personality shine.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


“And after I dropped him off, I took the longest possible route home... I explored alleys and hidden roads I never knew existed. I discovered neighborhoods entirely new to me. And finally... I discovered I was sick of this town and everything in it.”
― Jay Asher, quote from Thirteen Reasons Why


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About the author

Jay Asher
Born place: in Arcadia, California, The United States
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Popular quotes

“His two front teeth are slightly crooked, veer just a tiny bit to the right, as if they've decided perfection is overrated. His smile is like unlocking a riddle. How does an imperfection make him seem more perfect?”
― Julie Buxbaum, quote from Tell Me Three Things


“This is the underside of my world.

Of course you don’t want me to be stupid, bless you! you only want to make sure you’re intelligent. You don’t want me to commit suicide; you only want me to be gratefully aware of my dependency. You don’t want me to despise myself; you only want the flattering deference to you that you consider a spontaneous tribute to your natural qualities. You don’t want me to lose my soul; you only want what everybody wants, things to go your way; you want a devoted helpmeet, a self-sacrificing mother, a hot chick, a darling daughter, women to look at, women to laugh at, women to come for comfort, women to wash your floors and buy your groceries and cook your food and keep your children out of your hair, to work when you need the money and stay home when you don’t, women to be enemies when you want a good fight, women who are sexy when you want a good lay, women who don’t complain, women who don’t nag or push, women who don’t hate you really, women who know their job and above all—women who lose. On top of it all, you sincerely require me to be happy; you are naively puzzled that I should be wretched and so full of venom in this the best of all possible worlds. Whatever can be the matter with me? But the mode is more than a little outworn.

As my mother once said: the boys throw stones at the frogs in jest.

But the frogs die in earnest.”
― Joanna Russ, quote from The Female Man


“Followed rules, not dreams. Never again. -Margaret Hellerstein”
― quote from Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure


“I've always remembered. This fellow said to me - if you think someones'doing you wrong, it's not for you to judge. Kill them first and then God can do the judging.”
― Robert Stone, quote from Dog Soldiers


“Here they found themselves year after year- a group of busy, youngish women who had eased their cars impatiently through the archaic streets of Rosedale, who had complained for a week previously about the time lost, the fuss over the children's dresses, and, above all, the boredom, but who were drawn together by a rather implausible allegiance- not so much to Miss Marsalles as to the ceremonies of their childhood, to a more exacting pattern of life which had been breaking apart even then but which survived, and unaccountably still survived, in Miss Marsalles's living room.”
― Alice Munro, quote from Dance of the Happy Shades


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