Ellen Hopkins Quotes

“Forgiveness isn’t my best thing.
Easier staying pissed. But I’m
tired of being pissed all the time.
Tired of feeling hurt by stuff that
can never be fixed because it is
an indelible part of the past.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Fallout

“I only have have one question, scraping the inside of me. Answer it, and I will stumble back into her shadow, shut my mouth, never ask again. I've tried to ignore it, but it won't go away. It haunts my dreams, chases me through every single day, and I don't have the strength to turn around, face it down. So please tell me and I swear I'll never ask again. It's in your power to make it go away, and all you have to do is tell me why you love her more.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Tricks

“...what good would it
do to
shutter your windows, never
dream of rainbows or find hope
in promises? Why choose to
walk away
rather than hold your ground
and fight for love?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“Clear.
Cold.
Empty.

Like how I feel
right now. Love
is strange. One
minute you’re
jungle fever.
The next
you’re
Artic
winter.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Fallout

“Innocence eroded into nightmare.
All because of very bad touch.
Love, corrupted.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Fallout

“The truth is, I've always been afraid of letting anyone get too close. I built a wall around me, a barricade to hide behind those few times someone wanted entry to my heart.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“Life is full of choices. We don't always make good ones. It seems to Kristina you gotta be crazy to open your windows, invite the demons in. Bree throws rocks at the feeble glass, laughs”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Sometimes,
you don't wake up.
But if you happen
to, you know things
will never be
the same.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

“Crank, You See isn't any ordinary monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving its tentacles not just around you, but through you, squeezing not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling until you try to get away. Try, and you hunger for it grasping clutch, the way its tendrils prop you up, your need intensifying exponentially every minute you refuse to admit its being (p.469)”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Anger is easier than forgiveness.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“I whisper and you close your eyes. I speak and you turn away. If I scream, will you finally hear me beg you to hold me close to you, promise you'll never let go?”
― Ellen Hopkins

“I love the way she feels in
the curve of my arm. I love
her unpretentious beauty,
her intelligence, her nerve.
But could I ever love her?
The concept of falling in love
is completely foreign, something
I can’t bring myself to accept.
Her hair pillows my cheek and
her hand on my leg is warm.
I care about you, Conner,
and I hate to see you hurting.
I want to respond but can’t
find the pretty words I need.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Without Warning

Sometimes you're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known, and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Ian's sense of right and wrong overwhelms me.
Not a single other person .... I know
possesses such an unshakable sense of morality.
Its more than unbelievable. It's frightening.
To offer without strings something all men crave,
and be rejected by him is incomprehensible.
Think I'll have to kick Kaeleigh's ass.
Does she have any idea what it means .... to be
so treasured? He has built a pedestal for her so tall
that she is afraid to be lifted atop it, because to fall
would mean certain death. But oh, she would rise
far, far beyond fear.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Identical

“Honesty.
Sobriety.
My virginity.

No way to regain
the first two, I almost
gave away the last.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Burned

“Right Here.

Beside a living, breathing human
being who cares for me. I can see
it in the cool lagoons of his eyes,
hear it in the timbre of his voice
when he speaks my name.

Right here.

Where the warmth of his skin
tempers the February cold and
the thinnest beam of his inner
light overcomes winter's pall.
He is a candle in the wilderness.

Right here.

Where the omnipresent specter
of death takes flight, awed
by the power of the two of us,
hearts beating in unison, as we
stumble through the darkness

toward one another.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Smoke

“Happiness is a bull's-eye, awaiting arrows of pain.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Smoke

“I thought he'd run if he knew. Instead, he offered help, not that I believed he could possibly help.

I thought he'd turn his back, close his heart, slink away. Instead, he promised sanctuary.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Burned

“Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Hurt. Enough to want to make someone else hurt too.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Burned

“Imperfections create character.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“...Every word an author writes causes ripples, like tossing a stone into a pond. And you don't know where they'll go, or who they'll touch, or when they might come back to you. I think everything you do is kind of like that, too.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Love is more than blind. It's brain-dead.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Tricks