Tahereh Mafi quote: "You think that because I am unwanted, because I am neglected and-and discarded-" My voice inches higher with every word, the unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming through my lungs. "You think I don't have a heart? You think I don't feel? You think that because I can inflict pain, that I should? You're just like everyone else. You think I'm a monster just like everyone else. You don't understand me at all."

Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed, overindulgence, and gluttony had ...
TAHEREH MAFI

Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was every...
TAHEREH MAFI

The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowi...
TAHEREH MAFI

It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.
TAHEREH MAFI

I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages...
TAHEREH MAFI

This planet is a broken bone that didn’t set right, a hundred pieces of crystal glued together. We...
TAHEREH MAFI

So that's it?" Kenji says. "You just like him for his personality, huh?"

"What?"
TAHEREH MAFI

Only an idiot would rely on the energy of a bean or a leaf to stay awake throughout the day.
TAHEREH MAFI

Kenji snorts.“That’s because you’re not fragile,” Kenji says. “If anything, everyone needs...
TAHEREH MAFI

I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.
TAHEREH MAFI

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my ...
TAHEREH MAFI

I can do anything I want.
Be with anyone I want.
And it'll be my choice.
TAHEREH MAFI

I am going to MURDER YOU—”
“No,” he says, pointing at me as he shifts backward again. �...
TAHEREH MAFI

Hey, um, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for a friend of mine," he says. "Have you seen her...
TAHEREH MAFI

I do know that I don't want to wake him.

We were up very late last night.
TAHEREH MAFI

Lift your hips for me, love.
TAHEREH MAFI

I touch the tip of my finger to his lips. "There are secrets in here," I say. "I want them out."
TAHEREH MAFI

His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heavi...
TAHEREH MAFI

Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever ...
TAHEREH MAFI

Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.
TAHEREH MAFI

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I form...
TAHEREH MAFI

For so many years I lived in constant terror of myself. Doubt had married my fear and moved into my ...
TAHEREH MAFI

I feel like I’ve been split open and stuffed with sunshine.
TAHEREH MAFI

There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It wil...
TAHEREH MAFI

Please," he says. "I'm begging you to stop."

I still.

"I can't stomach your p...
TAHEREH MAFI

He's looking at the wall and at the floor and at the bedsheets and at the way his knuckles look when...
TAHEREH MAFI

Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles
TAHEREH MAFI

His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him...
TAHEREH MAFI

So she told me a story. A story about a boy who was born with very green eyes, and the man who was s...
TAHEREH MAFI

Hey--jazz hands!" Kenji barks. "Get your ass back over here." He makes it a point to look as irritat...
TAHEREH MAFI

I’m not sure. But there’s something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, tha...
TAHEREH MAFI

On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to see...
TAHEREH MAFI

Hope.

It's like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It's a fre...
TAHEREH MAFI

I always wonder about raindrops.

I wonder about how they're always falling down, tripping...
TAHEREH MAFI

Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.
It creeps on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in ...
TAHEREH MAFI

I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into y...
TAHEREH MAFI

Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age. They take root in us as we g...
TAHEREH MAFI

And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing
and not breathing and hearts beating
between us a...
TAHEREH MAFI

His smile is laced with dynamite. "Go to sleep"
"Go to hell."
He works his jaw. Walks to t...
TAHEREH MAFI

You’ve been on the edge of insanity your entire life, haven’t you? So many people called you cra...
TAHEREH MAFI

I'm wearing dead cotton on my limbs and a blush of roses on my face.
TAHEREH MAFI

Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extr...
TAHEREH MAFI

He looks immaculate.
Flawless, especially as he stands here among the dirt and destruction, sur...
TAHEREH MAFI

I hear Warner laugh.
I see him smile.
It's the kind of smile that transforms him into some...
TAHEREH MAFI

Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never, ever sleeps.
TAHEREH MAFI

His eyes are two buckets of rainwater: deep, fresh, clear. Hurt.
TAHEREH MAFI

Why are you touching me?"

"Because I can.
TAHEREH MAFI

Every butterfly in the world has migrated to my stomach.
TAHEREH MAFI

Hope is a pocket of possibility.
I'm holding it in my hand.
TAHEREH MAFI

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.
TAHEREH MAFI

I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.
TAHEREH MAFI

I didn't want the clothes or the perfect shoes or the expensive anything. I didn't want to be draped...
TAHEREH MAFI

My father couldn't warm my frozen hands.
TAHEREH MAFI

I peek up at his features, at the crooked grin i want to savor, at the color in his eyes i'd use to ...
TAHEREH MAFI

She could see all of Ferenwood from here: the rolling hills, the endless explosion of color cascadin...
TAHEREH MAFI

I like the way I feel about myself when I'm with him." I say quietly. "Warner thinks I'm strong and ...
TAHEREH MAFI

Good God, I have taken leave of my senses. I never thank Delalieu. I've likely given the poor man a ...
TAHEREH MAFI

I sigh. "I don't know what's happening to me."
"They're called hormones."

I shoot hi...
TAHEREH MAFI

I clench my fists and try not to scream and I tuck my friends in my heart and
revenge TAHEREH MAFI

While a part of me wants to know, another part of me is too exhausted to ask.
TAHEREH MAFI

Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?
TAHEREH MAFI

Studies have shown that thinking and wondering lead to thoughtful decision-making. It's an epidemic.
TAHEREH MAFI

we write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manu...
TAHEREH MAFI

The tattoo is just setting below his hp bone.
H e l l i s e m p t y
a n d a l l t h e d ...
TAHEREH MAFI

And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because ...
TAHEREH MAFI

Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can't help but try to collect the change and h...
TAHEREH MAFI

It's like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in becau...
TAHEREH MAFI

I open the book and turn to the next page. Day three.

I started screaming today.
TAHEREH MAFI

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.
TAHEREH MAFI

Of course I remember you." My voice is a strangled whisper. I squeeze my eyes shut. "You were the on...
TAHEREH MAFI

And if you insist on continuing to make assumptions about my character, I’ll advise you only this:...
TAHEREH MAFI

I allowed myself to believe she’d seen a future for us; that she wanted to be with me and simply t...
TAHEREH MAFI

He's wrong he's so he's so wrong he's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow.
TAHEREH MAFI

My words wear no parachutes as they fall out of my mouth.
TAHEREH MAFI

You sick piece of shit," Adam says to him, his voice low, measured.
"Such unfortunate language....
TAHEREH MAFI

She is a soft, deadly creature. Kind and timid and terrifying. She's completely out of control and h...
TAHEREH MAFI

This isn't about Adam or Warner," I tell him, "This is about me and what I want. This is about me fi...
TAHEREH MAFI

You deserve so much more than charity," he said, his chest heaving. "You deserve to live, You deserv...
TAHEREH MAFI

I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.
TAHEREH MAFI

My life is four walls of missed opportunities poured in concrete molds.
TAHEREH MAFI

Find me a cure for these tears, I'd really like to exhale for the first time in my life.
TAHEREH MAFI

I have a curse.
I HAVE A GIFT.
I'm a monster.
I'M MORE THAN HUMAN.
My touch Is l...
TAHEREH MAFI

In just two days, one girl has managed to cripple me.
TAHEREH MAFI

Friendship is not a thing I have ever experienced. Not as a child, and not as I am now.
TAHEREH MAFI

Warner was supposed to be dead. Warner was supposed to be dead because I was supposed to have shot h...
TAHEREH MAFI

What difference does it make?" he says. "People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their v...
TAHEREH MAFI

My opinions,” I say to him, quietly this time, “should not so easily break your own. Stand by yo...
TAHEREH MAFI

You allow the world to think you're a heartless murderer," I tell him. "And you're not."

...
TAHEREH MAFI

You’re perfect,” I tell him, so overcome I forget myself. “All of you. Your entire body.
...
TAHEREH MAFI

This girl is destroying me.
TAHEREH MAFI

But he grins, so brilliantly, not even paying attention. “I love it when you say my name,” he sa...
TAHEREH MAFI

Watching her talk to someone else made me crazy. I was jealous. Ridiculous. I wanted her to know me;...
TAHEREH MAFI

Because I want her.
Now.
Here.
Everywhere.
I want nothing between us.
I wa...
TAHEREH MAFI

I loved making you mad," he says to me, his eyes wicked. "I love making you mad.
TAHEREH MAFI

I’ve come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The...
TAHEREH MAFI

Love is a heartless bastard
TAHEREH MAFI

I almost forget that she still hates me, despite how hard I've fallen for her.
And I've fallen....
TAHEREH MAFI

People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time.
TAHEREH MAFI

And I've fallen.

So hard.

I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in...
TAHEREH MAFI

There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world," he says ...
TAHEREH MAFI

The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up...
TAHEREH MAFI

I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the p...
TAHEREH MAFI

Three forty-five-pound plates on each side of what Kenji told me is an Olympic bar, which weighs an ...
TAHEREH MAFI

In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take eve...
TAHEREH MAFI

I do want you," I say to him, my voice shaking. "I want you so much it scares me.
TAHEREH MAFI

I'm not trying to fix you; I don't think you need to be fixed. I'm not trying to turn you into someo...
TAHEREH MAFI

Have you ever been in love?" I ask, turning on my side to look at him. He stares up at the sky. Blin...
TAHEREH MAFI

You think Warner is sexy?"
...
"I do like his face.
TAHEREH MAFI

Can you hear my heart? I want to ask him.

I want you to make a list of all you...
TAHEREH MAFI

Tahereh Mafi

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