The Darkest Minds Quotes

“Let's carpe the hell out of this diem.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Ruby, give me one reason why we can’t be together, and I’ll give you a hundred why we can. We can go anywhere you want. I’m not your parents. I’m not going to abandon you or send you away, not ever.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Life isn’t fair." I said. "It’s taken me a while to get that. It’s always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You’ll make plans, and it’ll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them. You’ll try for something and won’t get it. You don’t have to find meaning in it; you don’t have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself. That’s your job.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“—I don't want to lose you
—Then why are you the one that keeps letting go?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“God." He shook his head, mouth twisting into a shadow of a smile. "Did you know... you make me so happy that sometimes I actually forget to breathe? I'll be looking at you, and my chest will get so tight... and it's like, the only thought in my head is how much I want to reach over and kiss you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Nope," he whispered, when I tried to tug it away. "Mine now.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“So thought crossed my mind," Liam said suddenly.
"That must've been a lonely journey," Chubs said flipping the pages of his book.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Breathing him in wasn't enough, I wanted to inhale him. The leather, the smoke, the sweetness.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“What?" he whispered. "What are you smiling about?"
My fingers brushed against his hair, trying to smooth it down. I realized what I was doing a full minute after Liam had closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. Embarrassment flared up my chest, but he grabbed my hand before I could pull back and tucked it under his chin.
"Nope," he whispered, when I tried to tug it away. "Mine now."
Dangerous. This is dangerous. The warning was fleeting, banished to the back corners of my mind, where it wouldn't interrupt how good it felt to touch him - how right.
"I'm going to need it back eventually," I said, letting him run it along the stubble on his chin.
"Too bad."
"...crackers..." a voice breathed out behind us, "yessss..."
Both of us turned, watching as Chubs twisted around in his seat and settled back down, still fast asleep.
I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Liam rolled his eyes, smiling.
"He dreams about food," he said. "A lot."
"At least they're good dreams."
"Yeah," Liam agreed. "I guess he's lucky.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive. Do not let anyone make you feel like you shouldn't have.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Maybe we had just gotten too used to being alone-- and maybe that needed to change.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Just shut up and start sucking each other's faces already," Vida grumbled, leaning awkwardly against the stump. She would never admit it aloud, but I knew the burns on her back her eating her alive with pain. "I'm trying to make up for the sleep I lost when you started screeching at each other like cats in heat."
"Miss Vida," Liam said, "has anyone ever told you that you are positively the whipped cream on the sundae of life?"
She glared at him. "Anyone ever told you your head is shaped like a pencil?"
"That is physically impossible," Chubs groused. "He'd be--"
"Actually," Liam began, "Cole once did try to-- What?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Chub said, "apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue."
"I'm going to guess you probably don't want to hear about the time he pushed my head through the neighbours fence..."
"Was there a lot of blood?" Vida asked, suddenly interested. "Did you lose an ear?"
Liam held his hands up next to his ears, indicating both were firmly attached to his skull.
"Then, no" she said. "No one wants to hear your boring-ass story.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“I'll teach you later, but for now I just need someone to watch the signs for me. Come on up to the copilot chair."
I jerked a thumb in the direction of Chubs.
Liam only shook his head. "Are you kidding me? Yesterday he thought a mailbox was a clown."
I unbuckle my seat belt with a sigh. As I climbed over Chubs's outstretched legs to the front, I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes going to his too-small glasses. " Is his eyesight really that bad?"
"Worse," Liam said. "So, right after we got the hell out of Caledonia, we broke into this house to spend the night, right? I woke up in the middle of the night hearing the most awful noise, like a cow dying or something. I followed the wailing, clutching some kid's baseball bat, thinking I was going to have to beat someone's head in for us to make a clean getaway. then I saw what was sitting at the bottom of a drained pool."
"No way," I said.
"Way," he confirmed. "Hawkeye had gone out to relieve himself and had somehow missed the giant gaping hole in the ground. Twisted his ankle and couldn't climb out of the deep end.
I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was impossible. The mental image was just too damn good.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“We used our minds like weapons clenched tightly in our fists, struggling to return them back to their holsters without injuring ourselves in the process.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Are you driving this slow because you have no idea where we're going, or because you're hoping we jump out of the car & put ourselves out of our misery?”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Joseph Lister?" Liam said suddenly, cutting through the silence. "Really? Him?"
Chubs stiffened beside me. "That man was a hero. He pioneered research on the origins of infections and sterilization."
Liam stared hard at the faux leather cover of just Chubs's skip-tracer ID, carefully choosing his next words. "You couldn't have chosen something cooler? Someone who is maybe not an old dead white guy?"
"His work led to the reduction of post operative infections and safer surgical practices," Chubs insisted. "Who would you have picked? Captain America?"
"Steve Rogers is a perfectly legit name." Liam pass the ID back to him. " This is all...very Boba Fett of you. I'm not sure what to say, Chubsie.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“You are actually the worst person I have ever met,” Chubs said. “And people like you are the reason we have middle fingers.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“Maybe that's the whole point-life showing me how good it could be, letting me have it just long enough to want it more than I've ever wanted anything else, only to rip it away. When you have nothing for so long, you forget the terror of having something to lose.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Sparks Rise

“She shows up everywhere, at any time, like she can guess
what we’re going to do before we do it.”
“The lady is good at what she does,” Liam confirmed.
“Can you please not compliment the person trying to drag our asses back to camp?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

“Fire is calling my name. It is whispering words of encouragement, sweet things. It wants out, for me to fan the heat until it’s a vortex that can’t and won’t be stopped.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Sparks Rise

“Ruby, what does the future look like?" Nico asked. "I can't picture it. I try all the time, but I can't imagine it. Jude said it looked like an open road just after a rainstorm.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Eyes of a poet, hands of a killer.

Who the hell are you?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Legacy

“What did it feel like," he asked, "to hold a storm in your hands?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Legacy

“Desperate times, I thought. When were they not though?”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Legacy

“It's a wild place of half-told stories and overgrown dreams.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Beyond the Night

“I sit beside her, and it is a small miracle, it is something I will never take for granted, that she leans her head against my shoulder. Her hand finds mine. I let the soft warmth of her skin melt into the fire that burns beneath mine.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Beyond the Night

“Tell me a story," she whispers.
No more stories. No more fairy tales.
"I love you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Beyond the Night

“I looked into the darkness ahead, sparks gathering in my heart. "Beyond."
Then we were running, shadows racing the night.”
― Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Legacy

“And for a single instant my body confused the need to kill him with the need to kiss him.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“The hate and mistrust burning in the soldiers eyes might have shrunken my spine, but it only sparked rebellion in the older kids.”
― Alexandra Bracken (author)