Quotes from Vivian Apple at the End of the World

Katie Coyle ·  262 pages

Rating: (4.5K votes)


“Don't be the kind of person who sees groups instead of people.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“The best I can hope for is the occasional moment of loose happy freedom—found usually with Harp but once or twice on this trip with Peter—that tells me it’s okay. That if I was put on this earth for any particular reason, it was to experience love and joy, just like anybody else.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“But Viv, if I've learned anything at all in the last eight years of my life? It's that people just like to tell themselves stories about where they came from. They can't help themselves. They don't trust the world around them--it's too good for them, or not good enough--so they tell themselves stories about it. They tell themselves an old magician who lives up in the sky made them out of clay and put them here until whenever he makes up his mind to take them out again. Your parents didn't like their creation myth, that's all--it had pain in it, and chaos, and their own parents were ashamed. So they told themselves a story that was at least partially true: about two good people who deserved happy lives. And probably at some point they started to believe that story. But the thing is, really, that it doesn't matter. For your parents or anyone else. It doesn't actually matter where we came from, or where we're going, or when. The only thing that matters is what we have to do while we're here and how well we do it.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“This is car theft. This is running away. This is some punk-rock New Orphans shit. This is not like any Vivian Apple I have ever been before. But this is Vivian Apple at the end of the world.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“The way we live our lives is not sustainable. I don’t just mean recycling and turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth. I mean the way we treat each other. The way we pick and choose whose lives are important—who we actually treat as human. There is nobody on this earth whose life is not of value.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World



“But the thing is, really,” Peter continues, “that it doesn’t matter. For your parents or anyone else. It doesn’t actually matter where we came from, or where we’re going, or when. The only thing that matters is what we have to do while we’re here and how well we do it.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“It doesn’t actually matter where we came from, or where we’re going, or when. The only thing that matters is what we have to do while we’re here and how well we do it.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“The group’s camaraderie had a certain level of appeal in a city where a sexually active girl could find herself waking up in a house on fire,”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“Oh, Vivian Apple," Harp says. "You beautiful, crazy bitch.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


“I know Harp doesn’t really regret it either, because it meant she got to scream “FUCK YOU, OLD MAN” at Mr. Knackstedt as we walked out the door.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World



“What the Church wanted from you wasn't goodness; it was meekness. And I know because I've been meek for seventeen years. That's what you just called godliness. It's so much easier to be meek--to read the guidelines and submit and obey, instead of actually dealing with chaos, or pain--but that's not what good is.”
― Katie Coyle, quote from Vivian Apple at the End of the World


About the author

Katie Coyle
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Experiencing yourself out of context, divorced from your usual point of view, skews your perspective – it’s like hearing your voice on an answering machine. It’s almost like meeting a stranger; or discovering a talent you never knew you had.”
― Slash, quote from Slash


“Abandonment of slavery is also the banishment of the chimera of security. The world will not change overnight, and liberation will not happen unless individual women agree to be outcasts, eccentrics, perverts, and whatever the powers-that-be choose to call them.”
― Germaine Greer, quote from The Female Eunuch


“next to Wainwright, who was already”
― Jeffrey Archer, quote from A Matter of Honor


“Spontaneity is a good thing. The best things in life happen when you just let events … unfold. When you try to control things too much, you do yourself a disservice.”
― Anne Greenwood Brown, quote from Lies Beneath


“In fact, the real source of all those differences, is that the savage lives within himself, whereas the citizen, constantly beside himself, knows only how to live in the opinion of others; insomuch that it is, if I may say so, merely from their judgment that he derives the consciousness of his own existence.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, quote from Discourse on the Origin of Inequality


Interesting books

Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives
(27.8K)
Many Lives, Many Mas...
by Brian L. Weiss
King Rat
(28.7K)
King Rat
by James Clavell
Abarat
(23.3K)
Abarat
by Clive Barker
Kiss of Death
(36.1K)
Kiss of Death
by Rachel Caine
The Lions of Al-Rassan
(16.3K)
The Lions of Al-Rass...
by Guy Gavriel Kay
In a Sunburned Country
(72K)
In a Sunburned Count...
by Bill Bryson

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.