Adam Silvera Quotes

That's not our story." Mateo squeezes my hands. "We're not dying because of love. We were going to die today, no matter what. You didn't just keep me alive, you made me live." He climbs into my lap, bringing us closer. He hugs me so hard his heart is beating against my chest. I bet he feels mine. "Two dudes met. They fell in love. They lived. That's our story." "That's a better story. Ending still needs some work." "Forget about the ending," Mateo says in my ear. He pushes his chest away from mine so he can look me in the eye. "I doubt the world is in the mood for a miracle, so we know not to expect a happily-ever-after. I only care about the endings we lived through today. Like how I stopped being someone afraid of the world and the people in it." "And I stopped being someone I don't like," I say. "You wouldn't have liked me." He's tearing up and smiling. "And you wouldn't have waited for me to be brave. Maybe it's better to have gotten it right and been happy for one day instead of living a lifetime of wrongs.

Mateo is dead. That was no way for him to go out. Mateo should've gone out saving someone, because he was such a selfless person. No, even if he didn't die a hero's death, he died a hero. Mateo Torrez definitely saved me.

I drink every last drop of Reaper's Blood while looking up at the Crowned Dreamer. The elixir smells like burning bodies and tastes like iron and charcoal. The blood from the century phoenix, the golden-strand hydra, and the dead ghosts is heavy on my tongue like mud. My throat is burning and I'm this close to spitting out the rest, but I force myself to swallow it because this Reaper's Blood is game changing. I wasn't lucky enough to be born with powers- to be born a celestial. But now that I've absorbed these creature's abilities, the world will get to welcome me as their new champion- a one-of-a-kind, unkillable specter.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

All stories that are centring queer kids and their experiences are all valid whether it’s dealing with the trials of having parents who aren’t as welcoming about it or parents who are totally chill about it, which is obviously the hope for all teenagers. I think there are some things that could be said too, especially culturally, like there’s a lot of stigma in the Puerto Rican community that fathers especially are so hyper masculine that they will always be uncomfortable with their children being gay…

Death-Cast isn't calling Orion because he's not going to die today, and I think I know why.
This night is unfolding like a photo shoot coming together. For once, I'm not the subject. I'm the photographer, and everything is zooming into focus, like I'm switching out lenses until I land on the best one. The background is still blurry, but if I adjust the aperture just enough, light enters and exposes the true model of this photo shoot. The boy with the constellation name. I've only seen some of his stars at work, but I understand the beauty. Orion is the focal point, so I stare at him and the sharpness of his hazel eyes and the hunched framing of his body, and once everything is aligned, just like stars in a constellation, everything becomes clear.
"You're going to live," I say. "Until tomorrow, I guess." "You're going to have much longer than you think." "So you got some psychic Death-Cast powers or something?" "No, but I think destiny brought us together so I can change your future." "I don't get it." "You don't need the waitlist anymore, Orion. I'll give you my heart."

I'm going to live a first- the first time I talk openly about my life.

I write sad stories for teenagers because young adults need to see that there is no such thing as a happy ending when you're that age. Because your life is more than your teenage years. And that when we say "It Gets Better" it doesn't mean "Everything Gets Solved." It means you will still carry the weight from when things weren't good, but you will be stronger for it the next time you're unhappy- and that time will come. I want to show the battles that people go through. And I can't think of a better way to show young people that you can be strong enough to survive and survive and survive and survive than to write a character who overcomes their darkness.
I write sad stories so I can be a living, breathing example that someone who looks happy on the outside isn't always happy on the inside. I write sad stories because my own life is a story that's still going on.

I am a little concerned about spending my End Day with someone who's accepted dying, someone who's made mistakes. I don't know him, obviously, and he might turn out to be insanely destructive- he is outside in the middle of the night on a day he's slated for death after all. But no matter what choices we make- solo or together- our finish line remains the same. It doesn't matter how many times we look both ways. It doesn't matter if we don't go skydiving to play it safe, even though it means we'll never get to fly like our favorite superheros do. It doesn't matter if we keep our heads low when passing a gang in a bad neighborhood. No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end.

If there's any comfort that Teo feels about missing out on one last chance to say goodbye to his son, it's this. He would have loved the opportunity to express how proud he was of Mateo, how incomplete he would feel without him. But Mateo knew all of this. Teo finds pride in knowing that in the time he got to father Mateo, his son didn't die wondering how he felt about him. This would have been true without Death-Cast's existence, reminding everyone to be authentic in their lives, to let people know how they feel about each other, and to not wait until the last possible moment to speak their heart's truths.

You've made a name for yourself. And no one remembers the old one.

Thank you for everything, Dad. I'll be brave, and I'll be okay. I love you from here to there. Mateo

For those who feel like liars when they talk about the future. Take one day at a time.

If you're suffering and need help, reach out to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. If you still don't feel good after the first call, then hang up and call again. And again and again and again until you're safe from harmful thoughts. I have made those calls myself in the past, and I'm here to tell you that today.
Let's go to tomorrow together.

I succeeded in making you care. If you feel nothing, I failed you as a storyteller. I love happy endings, but some readers need the darker stories, too. The stories that don’t make them feel disturbed by their own reality because it doesn’t reflect what they’re used to seeing in fiction. There’s some comfort in harsher stories, and witnessing how one character rebuilds after tragedy can provide hope for the reader.