Rainbow Rowell Quotes

She smiled, and her eyes started to drift downward. "Cather..." Back up to his eyes. "You know that I'm falling in love with you, right?

All through first and second and third hour, Eleanor rubbed her palm. Nothing happened. How could it be possible that there were that many never ending all in one place? And were they always there, or did they just flip on wherever they felt like it? Because, if they were always there, how did she manage to turn doorknobs without fainting? Maybe this was why so many people said it felt better to drive a stick shift.

So, what if, instead of thinking about solving you whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.

In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't Google.)

You're a kaleidoscope, you change every time I look away.

Drinking tequila is more about the journey than the destination

Every woman wants a man who'll fall in love with her soul as well as her body.

What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.

Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.

Just … isn’t giving up allowed sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?” “It sets a dangerous precedent.” “For avoiding pain?” “For avoiding life.

You don’t have to be the kind of beautiful that everyone can agree on. If the right person finds you beautiful, you win. You win forever.

October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

And sometimes you held somebody’s hand just to prove that you were still alive, and that another human being was there to testify to that fact.

Cath couldn't stop thinking about Levi and his ten thousand smiles.

It was the best kind of November day. Cold and crisp, but not quite freezing, not icy. Just cold enough that she could justifiably wear all her favorite clothes—cardigans and tights and leg warmers.

Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.

Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you're still not better off without it.

Cath ate the banana and held on to his gaze. “I’d give you the moon right now,” she said. Levi’s eyes flashed happily, and he hitched up an eyebrow. “Yeah, but would you slay it for me?

You're never going to find a guy who's exactly like you - first of all, because that guy never leaves his dorm room.

I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.

I want everyone to meet you. You're my favorite person of all time.

I love you more than I hate everything else.

You saved me life, she tried to tell him. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I'm yours. The me that's me right now is yours. Always.

So...I'm larking through the Baby Gap, looking at tiny capri pants and sweaters that cost more than ... I don't know,more than they should. And I get totally sucked in by this ridiculous, tiny fur coat. The kind of coat a baby might need to go to the ballet. In Moscow. In 1918. To match her tiny pearls.

I'd rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.

He never hurries. He never shows his cards. He always hangs up first....Like when we first started talking on the phone, he would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more....[It was] excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven't eaten for a day and a half. Like you'd sell your soul for it.

Smiling is confusing, she thought. This is why I don’t do it.

You look ridiculous,” Wren said. “What?” “That shirt.” It was a Hello Kitty shirt from eighth or ninth grade. Hello Kitty dressed as a superhero. It said SUPER CAT on the back, and Wren had added an H with fabric paint. The shirt was cropped too short to begin with, and it didn’t really fit anymore. Cath pulled it down self-consciously. “Cath!” her dad shouted from downstairs. “Phone.” Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it “He must mean the house phone,” Wren said. “Who calls the house phone?” “Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back.

The first time he'd held her hand, it felt so good that it crowded out all the bad things. It felt better than anything had ever hurt.

There are moments when you can't believe something wonderful is happening. And there are moments when your entire consciousness is filled with knowing absolutely that something wonderful is happening.

If you can't save your own life, is it even worth saving?

<> It's nice of you to say I'm your best friend. <> You are my best friend, dummy. <> Really? You are my best friend. But I always assumed that somebody else was your best friend, and I was totally okay with that. You don't have to say that I'm your best friend just to make me feel good. <> You're so lame. <> That's why I figured somebody else was your best friend.

You’ve read the books?” “I’ve seen the movies.” Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.” “I’m not really a book person.” “That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me

He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.

I just want to know—are you rooting for me? Are you hoping I pull this off?" Cath's eyes settled on his, tentatively, like they'd fly away if he moved. She nodded her head. The right side of his mouth pulled up. "I'm rooting for you," she whispered. She wasn't even sure he could hear her from the bed. Levi's smile broke free and devoured his whole face.

You give away nice like it doesn't cost you anything.

It’s just … everything. There are too many people. And I don’t fit in. I don’t know how to be. Nothing that I’m good at is the sort of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn’t matter—and being good with words. And when those things do matter, it’s only because people want something from me. Not because they want me.

I want someone whose heart is big enough to hold me.

If you don't want people to look at you, Park had thought at the time, don't wear fishing lures in your hair. Her jewelry box must look like a junk drawer.

That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.

I'm the Cool One," she told herself. "Somebody give me some tequila because I'll totally drink it. And there's no way you're going to find me later having a panic attack in your parents' bathroom. Who wants to French-kiss?

I think I can live without you, but it won't be any kind of life.

I couldn't love anyone more than I do you, it would kill me. And I couldn't love anyone less because it would always feel like less. Even if I loved some other girl, that's all I would ever think about, the difference between loving her and loving you.

You act like there are two kinds of girls,' she said. 'The smart ones and the ones that boys like.

I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.

it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.

Fitting together is something you work at. It’s something you make happen—because you love each other.

Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.