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Extraordinary Means

Robyn Schneider

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Being temporary doesn't make something matter any less, because the point isn't for how long, the point is that it happened.”

“That's all you can do in this world, no matter how strong the current beats against you, or how heavy your burden, or how tragic your love story. You keep going.”

“There's difference between being dead and dying. We're all dying. Some of us die for ninety years, and some of us die for nineteen. But each morning everyone on this planet wakes up one day closer to their death. Everyone. So living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it.”

“We mourn the future because it's easier than admitting that we're miserable in the present.”

“In AP Bio, I learned that the cells in our body are replaced every seven years, which means that one day, I'll have a body full of cells that were never sick. But it also means that parts of me that knew and loved Sadie will disappear. I'll still remember loving her, but it'll be a different me who loved her. And maybe this is how we move on. We grow new cells to replace the grieving ones, diluting our pain until it loses potency. The percentage of my skin that touched hers will lessen until one day my lips won't be the same lips that kissed hers, and all I'll have are the memories. Memories of cottages in the woods, arranged in a half-moon. Of the tall metal tray return in the dining hall. Of the study tables in the library. The rock where we kissed. The sunken boat in Latham's lake, Sadie, snapping a photograph, laughing the lunch line, lying next to me at the movie night in her green dress, her voice on the phone, her apple-flavored lips on mine. And it's so unfair. All of it.”

“And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose.”

“Art is pain. And so is life.”

“Because the thing about miracles is that they’re not answers, no matter how much we want them to be.”

“I have a theory that life is gathering the raw materials, and when we die, we get to make patterns out of our lives and relive them in whatever order we want. That way I can spend forever repeating the days when I was really happy, and never have to experience any of the sad days. So that's how you live a really great life. You make sure you have enough good days that you want to go back to.”

“Now can you rate your pain for me on a scale of one to ten?" But I couldn't. It seemed so wrong to me then that there were only ten options, only ten types of pain. Because I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of types of pain in this world, maybe even thousands. And none of these are numbers on the same scale. They all hurt differently, and amounts have nothing to do with it. They all hurt too much, and not enough.”

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Book Keywords:

memories, biology, present, death, temporary, lane, love, sadie, pain, life, perspective, moving-on, art, dying, future, remembering, temporal

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