Jennifer Niven Quotes

It's okay to laugh, you know. The earth's not going to split open. You're not going to hell. Believe me. If there's a hell, I'll be there ahead of you, and they'll be too busy with me to even check you in.

~ Jennifer Niven

I like writing, but I like a lot of things. Maybe out of those things, I'm best at writing. Maybe it's what I like best of all. Maybe it's where I've always felt most at home. Or maybe the writing part of me is over. Maybe there's something else I'm supposed to do instead. I don't know.

~ Jennifer Niven

This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us

~ Jennifer Niven

I'm not a vain person, but I am human...

~ Jennifer Niven

I don't know what brings you up here, but to me the town looks prettier and the people look nicer and even the worst of them look almost kind.

~ Jennifer Niven

Besides, I kind of like my face intact like this, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, a full set of teeth, which, if I'm being honest, is one of my better features.

~ Jennifer Niven

When he smiles like that, there's a single dimple. It was the thing that got me the very first time I saw him.

~ Jennifer Niven

Let me ask you something. Do you think there's such a thing as a perfect day?What?A perfect day. Start to finish. When nothing terrible or sad or ordinary happens. Do you think it's possible?I don't know.Have you ever had one?No.I've never had one either, but I'm looking for it.

~ Jennifer Niven

Stars on the sky, stars on the ground. It's hard to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins.

~ Jennifer Niven

Water is peaceful. I am at rest. In the water, I am safe and pulled in where I can't get out. Everything slows down-the noise and the racing of my thoughts.

~ Jennifer Niven

I'd rather be judged on what I can do instead of who I'm not.

~ Jennifer Niven

You have been in every way all that anyone could be... If anybody could have saved me it would have been you.

~ Jennifer Niven

I meant what I said to Embryo about drugs. We don’t mix. What it comes down to for me is I have a hard enough time keeping control over my brain without something else getting in the way.

~ Jennifer Niven

What do you know about bipolar disorder?” I almost say, What do you know about it? But I make myself breathe and smile. “Is that the Jekyll-Hyde thing?” My voice sounds flat and even. Maybe a little bored, even though my mind and body are on alert. “Some people call it manic depression. It’s a brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in mood and energy. It runs in families, but it can be treated.” I continue to breathe, even if I’m not smiling anymore, but here is what is happening: my brain and my heart are pounding out different rhythms; my hands are turning cold and the back of my neck is turning hot; my throat has gone completely dry. The thing I know about bipolar disorder is that it’s a label. One you give crazy people. I know this because I’ve taken junior-year psychology and I’ve seen movies and I’ve watched my father in action for almost eighteen years, even though you could never slap a label on him because he would kill you. Labels like “bipolar” say This is why you are the way you are. This is who you are. They explain people away as illnesses.

~ Jennifer Niven

The Parents, as my mother and father refer to Mr. Finch and Mrs. Finch, are insisting it was an accident, which, I guess, means we're free to mourn him out in the open in a normal, healthy, unstigmatised way. No need to be ashamed or embarrassed since suicide isn't involved.

~ Jennifer Niven

I have this feeling, like I'm waiting for something. But I have no idea what.

~ Jennifer Niven

I want you to remember that you can’t feel responsible for everything. We’re your parents, and we will figure us out. All you need to do— any of you”— she looks at my brothers—” is be a kid for now and let us be there for you.”“All of us?” Dusty says. “Even those of us without neurological disorders?” “All of you.

~ Jennifer Niven

I think it's early. Early in our lives. Early in the night. Early in the new year. If you're counting, you'll notice the earlys outnumber the lates.

~ Jennifer Niven

Across the seat our eyes are holding hands.

~ Jennifer Niven

In 1912, a man named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing a parachute suit he designed himself. He jumped to test his invention--he expected to fly--but instead he fell straight down, hitting the ground like a meteor and leaving a 5.9-inch-deep crater from the impact. Did he mean to kill himself? Doubtful. I think he was just cocky, and also stupid.

~ Jennifer Niven

You are driving me crazy. You have been driving me crazy for weeks.

~ Jennifer Niven

Because it's not a lie if it's how you feel.

~ Jennifer Niven

I know life well enough to know you can't count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can't stop people from dying. You can't stop people from going away. You can't stop yourself from going away either.

~ Jennifer Niven

I didn't know that my life forever changing would be because you loved me and then left, and in such a final way.

~ Jennifer Niven

In case you haven't noticed, we're already involved, Finch. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm broken too.

~ Jennifer Niven

You’re probably better at math than I am, because pretty much everyone’s better at math than I am, but it’s okay, I’m fine with it. See, I excel at other, more important things—guitar, sex, and consistently disappointing my dad, to name a few. By the way, it's apparently true that you'll never use it in the real world. Math, I mean.

~ Jennifer Niven

You’re probably better at math than I am, because pretty much everyone’s better at math than I am, but it’s okay, I’m fine with it. See, I excel at other, more important things—guitar, sex, and consistently disappointing my dad, to name a few.

~ Jennifer Niven

The only way around it is to stay with one guy forever. But does forever have a built-in ending...?

~ Jennifer Niven

If a song's meant to stay around, you carry it with you in your bones.

~ Jennifer Niven

There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as it is.

~ Jennifer Niven

I have songs to write and songs to sing and planes to fly and I want to see my old yellow truck again.

~ Jennifer Niven

This is followed by laughter because we're in high school, which means we're predictable and almost everything is funny, especially if it's someone else's public humiliation.

~ Jennifer Niven

Just be careful implies that there's an end to it all, maybe in an hour, maybe in three years, but an end just the same.

~ Jennifer Niven