"The Neverending Story" Quotes by Michael Ende

Here are selected quotes from the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. It is one of the best young adult books that I have ever read.

- “If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger--

If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early--

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless--

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.”

- “Every real story is a never ending story.”

- “Reluctantly Bastian's thoughts turned back to reality. He was glad the Neverending Story had nothing to do with that. He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? Besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something. And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that. Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream. Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things. Because one thing he was good at, possibly the only thing, was imagining things so clearly that he almost saw and heard them.”

Best Young Adults Books List

Here is a list of the best young adult books that I have read, along with a short description of the book. One note... there are a lot of classics that could be considered as young adult books, but I left them off of this list. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way!

01. Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Quotes from the book
This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

02. Michael Ende - The Neverending Story - Quotes from the book
Bastian embarks on a wild adventure when he enters the magical world of Fantastica, a doomed land filled with dragons, giants, and monsters, and risks his life to save Fantastica by going on a very dangerous quest.

03. Lois Lowry - The Giver
The story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.

04. John Green - Looking for Alaska - Quotes from the book
Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.

05. Edward Bloor - Tangerine
Though legally blind, Paul Fisher can see what others cannot. He can see that his parents' constant praise of his brother, Erik, the football star, is to cover up something that is terribly wrong. But no one listens to Paul--until his family moves to Tangerine. In this Florida town, weird is normal: Lightning strikes at the same time every day, a sinkhole swallows a local school, and Paul the geek finds himself adopted into the toughest group around--the soccer team at his middle school.

06. Michael Ende - Momo
It is about the concept of time and how it is used by humans in modern societies. The full title in German translates to Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people.

07. Christopher Pike - Until the End: The Party; The Dance; The Graduation (Final Friends)
It’s the start of the school year, and the popular girls have decided to throw the best party, one their friends will never forget. But hooking up and hanging out are the farthest things from their minds when the unthinkable happens: Someone doesn't make it out of the party alive.

The death is declared a suicide, but nothing quite adds up. Convinced there’s a murderer on the loose, no one knows who they can turn to or who they can trust. Nowhere is safe, not the homecoming dance, not even graduation.

The truth will terrify them, but it must be revealed. Their lives depend on it.

08. Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

"The Perks of Being A Wallflower" Quotes by Stephen Chbosky

Here are selected quotes from The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

- "Dear friend,
I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at the party even though you could have. Please don't try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I don't really want you to do that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don't want you to find me. I didn't enclose a return address for the same reason. I mean nothing bad by this. Honest.
I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist." (2)

- "Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve." (24)

- "Bob nodded his head. Patrick then said something I don't think I'll ever forget.
'He's a wallflower.'
And Bob really nodded his head. And the whole room nodded their head. And I started to feel nervous in the Bob way, but Patrick didn't let me get too nervous. He sat down next to me.
'You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.'" (37)

- "Personally, I like to think my brother is having a college experience like they do in movies. I don't mean the big fraternity party kind of movie. More like the movie where the guy meets a smart girl who wears a lot of sweaters and drinks cocoa. They talk about books and issues and kiss in the rain. I think something like that would be very good for him, especially if the girls were unconventionally beautiful. They are the best kind of girls, I think. I personally find 'super models' strange. I don't know why this is." (51)

- "I don't know if it's better to have your kids be happy and not go to college. I don't know if it's better to be close with your daughter or make sure that she has a better life than you do." (59)

- "Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend." (66)

- "And I thought that all those little kids were going to grow up someday. And all 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." (74)

- "And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And the girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. And you know that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you were describing 'unity.'
It's like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means you're happy too." (96)

- "I didn't feel like reading that night, so I went downstairs and watched a half-hour long commercial that advertised an exercise machine. They kept flashing a 1-800 number, so I called it. The woman who picked up the other end of the phone was named Michelle. And I told Michelle that I was a kid and did not need an excercise machine, but I hoped she was having a good night.
That's when Michelle hung up on me. And I didn't mind a bit." (122)

- "I don't know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like. It's much easier not to know things sometimes. And to have french fries with your mom be enough." (144)

- "And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter." (179)

- "So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel ok about them." (211)

"Tomorrow, I start my sophomore year of high school. And believe it or not, I'm not really afraid of going. I'm not sure if I will have the time to write any more letters because I might be too busy trying to 'participate.'
So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough.
And I will believe the same about you.

Love always,
Charlie" (213)

"Looking For Alaska" Quotes by John Green

Here are selected quotes from Looking for Alaska by John Green.

- "'He' - that's Simon Bolivar - 'was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. "Damn it," he signed. "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!"'" (18)

- "Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war." (56)

- "'Auden,' she announced. 'What were his last words?'
'Don't know. Never heard of him.'
'Never heard of him? You poor, illiterate boy. Here read this line.' I walked over and looked down at her index finger. 'You shall love your crooked neighbor / With your crooked heart,' I read aloud. 'Yeah, that's pretty good,' I said.
'Pretty good? Sure, and bufriedos are pretty good. Sex is pretty fun. The sun is pretty hot. Jesus, it says so much about love and brokenness - it's perfect.'" (85)

- "So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." (88)

- "We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did." (197)

- "I realized it in waves and we held on to each other crying and I thought, God we must look so lame, but it doesn't matter much when you have just now realized, all the time later, that you are still alive." (214)

- "He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and the she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth... If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless." (218)

- "I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart." (218)

- "Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the already-dead, so I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life. And then I screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there’s no sugar-coating it: she deserved better friends.

When she fucked up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led for her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe it in spite of having lost her.

Because I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know now that she forgives me for being dumb and scared and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her. And here’s how I know:

I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her - green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs - would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled.

But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska’s genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of hre body, you do not get her. There is something else entirely. There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed.

Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself - those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we ARE as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, as so it cannot fail.

So, I know that she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison’s last words were: “It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful." (218-221)