10 of the Truest YA Quotes About the Future

The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner
“If you’re going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.”

The Sun is Also A Star, by Nicola Yoon
“People make mistakes all the time. Small ones, like you get in the wrong checkout line. The one with the lady with a hundred coupons and a checkbook.
Sometimes you make medium-sized ones. You go to medical school instead of pursuing your passion.
Sometimes you make big ones.
You give up.”

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
“When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It’s the saddest thing I know.”

Looking for Alaska, by John Green
“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”

Every Day, by David Levithan
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.”

The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.”

Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt
“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”