Relatable Quotes

“But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Sweet mother, I cannot weave –
slender Aphrodite has overcome me
with longing for a girl.”
― Sappho, Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works

“But there were worse things than disappointment, and I'd lived through several of them already.”
― R.J. Anderson, Ultraviolet

“Maybe I'd always been broken and dark inside.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“I've always felt like once someone sees me deep down, that's it. There's something ugly in there, or unlovable, and you're the only person who's ever made me feel like I'm okay.”
― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation

“And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.”
― Ann Liang, This Time It's Real

“I wonder if my entire life will be a series of moments in which I realize I’m an idiot long after I can actually do anything about it. Will I ever feel like I know what I’m doing?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“And even though I laughed with them, it felt like I was watching the whole thing from somewhere else, like I was watching a movie about my life instead of living it.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“By out-talking or bad-mouthing people, some get hoisted by their own petard, ultimately. When their sense of shame makes them crawl back to the open, they can only recover through a convalescing remedy of humbleness. After an exhausting journey throughout the scorching desert of disgrace, they come to know how to be reborn from themselves. This rebirth allows them to recognize their true selves and to become relatable again. ("Waiting for emancipation")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I might not be ready to pour out my feelings to the world, but I’d had enough of trying to ignore them.”
― R.J. Anderson, Ultraviolet

“But I can now understand why people read, why they like to get lost in somebody else's life. Sometimes I'll read a sentence and it will make me sit up, jolt me, because it is something that I have recently felt but never said out loud. I want to reach into the page and tell the characters that I understand them, that they're not alone, that I'm not alone, that it's ok to feel like this. And then the lunch bell rings, the book closes, and I'm plunged back into reality.”
― Cecelia Ahern, Flawed

“I can't help it. I'm a Slytherin."

And I'm the worst kind of Slytherin. I'm the kind who's so stupidly in love with a Gryffindor, she can't even function. I'm the Draco from some shitty Drarry fic that the author abandoned after four chapters.”
― Becky Albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat

“Mentally, I was a slut. Physically, I was terrified of intimacy. Spiritually, I didn’t like men.
I was confused.”
― Jasmine Mas, Psycho Devils

“It might be said that Tress had a way with words. In that her words tended to get in her way.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Just because it could be worse doesn't mean you don't get to acknowledge how much it sucks, you know.”
― Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown

“I have always loved Naoko, and I still love her. But there is a decisive finality to what exists between Midori and me. It has an irresistible power that is bound to sweep me into the future. What I feel for Naoko is a tremendously quiet and gentle and transparent love, but what I feel for Midori is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“If you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.”
― Bob Dylan

“So, I keep thinking about the idea of secret identities. Do you ever feel locked into yourself? I'm not sure if I'm making sense here. I guess what I mean is that sometimes it seems like everyone knows who I am except me.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“What would you do if you only had one day left in this world? Spend it with the people you love? Travel to the far corners of the earth to see as many wonders as possible? Eat nothing but chocolate? Would you apologize for all your mistakes? Would you stand up to those you'd never had the courage to face? Would you tell your secret crush that you loved him or her? Why is it that we wait till the last minute to do the things we should be doing all along?”
― Jodi Picoult, Off the Page

“I squinted at her. “You’re an adult.” “You’re an adult too.” “But you’re an older adult. You’ve had more practice.” Mom leaned back and laughed.”
― Ilona Andrews, White Hot

“I think what you're underestimating here is how much better I can get and still be a complete disaster.”
― Alexis Hall, Boyfriend Material

“Lily had lived with the same pain for so long it felt like a part of her. The worst days, though, were when the pain was different. When it came faster, or harsher, or fiercer than she was used to. When it prickled instead of throbbed. When it attacked her right ankle instead of her left knee. When it woke her up at night instead of aching dully first thing in the morning. On those days, her standard-issue pain was replaced by something different and frightening, something that took over her body and left her without the slightest clue of when, or even if, it would release her.

Those times, her pain wasn’t a part of her anymore. Those times, she was a part of it.”
― Robin Talley, As I Descended

“You're quite tall.' Just what a girl wants to be reminded of.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.”
― Grace Paley, Fidelity: Poems

“I felt like laundry in a washing machine, when all I wanted was to be put on and become her favourite shirt.”
― Isabelle Ronin, Chasing Red

“It makes me sad because it only exists in words.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“It gave him the same odd sense of dislocation, though; that sense of losing some valuable part of himself that could not survive the passage back to daily life. Each time, the passage became more difficult.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

“For the first time in some years, I didn't care what Father said to me, even though I knew that by the end of the day my conscience would probably win out and I would end up apologizing to him as well.”
― M.L. LeGette

“It was a Wednesday, I think. Yes, a Wednesday, that miserable day sandwiched between the dreadful Monday and Tuesday and the 'all right' Thursday and Friday, which ultimately gave way to what I hoped woud be a glorious weekend.”
― Gauri Jhangiani, The Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary People

“I wonder what it would be like, to never have to be alone.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir