Ruta Sepetys Quotes

I leapt eagerly into books. The characters’ lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.

I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.

Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness.

Andrius, I'm...scared." He stopped and turned to me. "No. Don't be scared. Don't give them anything Lina, not even your fear.

He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot. We were about to become cigarettes.

Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy—love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.

Some things just won’t go away, no matter how hard you scrub.

What do you do with all this bank, Josie? Be a lot easier if you just lifted your skirt.” “The only reason I’d lift my skirt is to pull out my pistol and plug you in the head.

Decisions, they shape our destiny.

A wrongdoing doesn't give us the right to do wrong.

Tragedy was a big social event, and everyone wanted in on it.

Mrs. Rimas cried at the mention of the wafer and the traditional Christmas blessing. "God grant that we are all together again next year.

Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start.

Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way.

I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.

Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way. But it's far more sincere in its clumsiness than those distinguished men you read about in books. Your father was very clumsy.

We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.

Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch.

You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.

What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn't know the question?

We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean.

Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There's love and emotion trying to express itself, but at the time, it just ends up being awkward.

If I poured all the lies I had told into the Mississippi, the river would rise and flood the city.

My sister and brother are both writers as well. We are constantly discussing story and plot lines. And I love to discuss story ideas with my husband.

I wasn't certain of anything anymore, except that New Orleans was a faithless friend and I wanted to leave her.

Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?

I stared at the enormous homes, the landscaping and flower beds immaculate. It was as if dollar bills, instead of leaves, hung from the trees.

Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.

But wasn't there some sort of rule that said parents had to be smarter than their kids? It didn't seem fair.

I looked down at the little pink face in the bundle. A newborn. The child had been alive only minutes but was already considered a criminal by the Soviets.

Krasivaya. It means beautiful, but with strength. Unique.

We all laced together—a brothel madam, an English professor, a mute cook, a quadroon cabbie, and me, the girl carrying a bucket of lies and throwing them like confetti.

I adore themes of hope and courage and the ways we find meaning through suffering.

Charlie Marlowe never wrote horror, but somehow horror was writing Charlie Marlowe.

It amazed me how some people could touch an instrument and create something so beautiful, and when others tried, like me, it just sounded like mangled noise.

You like me, Josie Moraine. You just don't know it yet.

Somehow I had to turn the salted peanuts in the cigar box into petits fours.

War had bled color from everything, leaving nothing but a storm of gray.

They got everything money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain't happy. They ain't ever gonna be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can't fix that, no sir.

It's safer for you to stay with the others, ' he said.Safer? He didn't realize.I was already dead.

But how can they just decide that we're animals? They don't even know us, " I said."We know us, " said Mother. "They're wrong. And don't ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?

How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.

Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.

But unlike Mama, I would not go to heaven. My secrets padlocked the gates. I'd be a torn kite stuck in the dead branches of a tree, unable to fly.

I wanted to stay locked away from the pain and destruction. I didn't want to be strong. I didn't want to be the 'smart girl'. I was so very tired. I just wanted it all to be over.

My war had been so long, my winter so cold. But i had made it home. And for the first time in a long time, i was not afraid.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

They have a baby grand piano, but no one in the family plays. They have shelves of books they've never read, and the tension between the couples was so thick it nearly choked us.

Everyone has a price, ” she said.“But clearly not everyone has a soul,