“And I realized that there's a big difference between deciding to leave and knowing where to go.”
―
Robyn Schneider,
The Beginning of Everything
“Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist, and that’s all. I don’t know if he’s right, but I do know that I spend a long time existing, and now, I intend to live.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Life is the tragedy,' she said bitterly. 'You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. So we're all living tragedies, because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“If you like nerds, raise your hand. If you don't, raise your standards.” ― Violet Haberdasher
“There's a word for it," she told me, "in French, for when you have a lingering impression of something having passed by. Sillage. I always think of it when a firework explodes and lights up the smoke from the ones before it.""That's a terrible word," I teased. "It's like an excuse for holding onto the past.""Well, I think it's beautiful. A word for remembering small moments destined to be lost.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Words could betray you if you chose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many. Jokes could be grandly miscalculated, or stories deemed boring, and I'd learned early on that my sense of humor and ideas about what sorts of things were fascinating didn't exactly overlap with my friends'.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“If everything really does get better, the way everyone claims, then happiness should be graphable. But that's crap, because better isn't quantifiable.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“She tasted like buried treasure and swing sets and coffee. She tasted the way fireworks felt, like something you could get close to but never really have just for yourself.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Being temporary doesn't make something matter any less, because the point isn't for how long, the point is that it happened.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary - a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“You have this maddening little smile sometimes, like you've just thought of something incredibly witty but are afraid to say it in case no one gets the joke.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“To Cassidy, the panopticon wasn't a metaphor. It was the greatest failing on everything she was, a prison she had built for herself out of an inability to appear anything less than perfect. And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. She would always be confined by what everyone expected of her because she was too afraid and too unwilling to correct our imperfect imaginings.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“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.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“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.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“You see? You're just figuring it out now, but I discovered a long time ago that the smarter you are, the more tempting it is to just let people imagine you. We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“The funny thing about gold is how quickly it can tarnish.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“The way I figured it, keeping quiet was safe. Words could betray you if you choose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“History is filled with fictional people.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist, and that’s all. I don’t know if he’s right, but I do know that I spend a long time existing, and now, I intend to live.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Life is the tragedy,' she said bitterly. 'You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. So we're all living tragedies, because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“If you like nerds, raise your hand. If you don't, raise your standards.” ― Violet Haberdasher
“There's a word for it," she told me, "in French, for when you have a lingering impression of something having passed by. Sillage. I always think of it when a firework explodes and lights up the smoke from the ones before it.""That's a terrible word," I teased. "It's like an excuse for holding onto the past.""Well, I think it's beautiful. A word for remembering small moments destined to be lost.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Words could betray you if you chose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many. Jokes could be grandly miscalculated, or stories deemed boring, and I'd learned early on that my sense of humor and ideas about what sorts of things were fascinating didn't exactly overlap with my friends'.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“If everything really does get better, the way everyone claims, then happiness should be graphable. But that's crap, because better isn't quantifiable.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“She tasted like buried treasure and swing sets and coffee. She tasted the way fireworks felt, like something you could get close to but never really have just for yourself.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“Being temporary doesn't make something matter any less, because the point isn't for how long, the point is that it happened.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary - a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“You have this maddening little smile sometimes, like you've just thought of something incredibly witty but are afraid to say it in case no one gets the joke.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“To Cassidy, the panopticon wasn't a metaphor. It was the greatest failing on everything she was, a prison she had built for herself out of an inability to appear anything less than perfect. And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. She would always be confined by what everyone expected of her because she was too afraid and too unwilling to correct our imperfect imaginings.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“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.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“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.” ― Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means
“You see? You're just figuring it out now, but I discovered a long time ago that the smarter you are, the more tempting it is to just let people imagine you. We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“The funny thing about gold is how quickly it can tarnish.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“The way I figured it, keeping quiet was safe. Words could betray you if you choose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
“History is filled with fictional people.” ― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything
