All the Bright Places

All the Bright Places

by

Jennifer Niven

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1. Finch: I am awake again. Day 6. Quotes

The fact is, I was sick, but not in an easily explains flu kind of way. It’s my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other recognizable disease just to make it simple for me and also for them. Anything would be better than the truth: I shut down again. I went blank.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Mr. Embry
Page Number: 15-16
Explanation and Analysis:

The thing I don’t say is: I want to stay alive. The reason I don’t say it is because, given that fat folder in front of [Mr. Embry], he’d never believe it. And here’s something else he’d never believe—I’m fighting to be here in this shitty, messed-up world. Standing on the ledge of the bell tower isn’t about dying. It’s about having control. It’s about never going to sleep again.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Mr. Embry
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Violet: 154 days till graduation Quotes

I have a headache. Probably from the glasses. Eleanor’s eyes were worse than mine. I take the glasses off and set them on the desk. They were stylish on her. They’re ugly on me. Especially with the bangs. But maybe, if I wear the glasses long enough, I can be like her. I can see what she saw. I can be both of us at once so no one will have to miss her, most of all me.

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Eleanor Markey
Related Symbols: Eleanor’s Glasses
Page Number: 23-24
Explanation and Analysis:
6. Finch: Day 7 of the Awake Quotes

“But that isn’t why. The why is that none of it matters. Not school, not cheerleading, not boyfriends or friends or parties or creative writing programs or…” She waves her arms at the world. “It’s all just time filler until we die.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Whether it’s filler or not, I’m pretty glad to be here.” If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you need to make the most of it. “It mattered enough for you not to jump.”

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey (speaker), Eleanor Markey
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:

Worthless. Stupid. These are the words I grew up hearing. They’re the words I try to outrun, because if I let them in, they might stay there and grow and fill me up and in, until the only thing left of me is worthless stupid worthless stupid worthless stupid freak. And then there’s nothing to do but run harder and fill myself with other words: This time will be different. This time, I will stay awake.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Dad
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:
8. Finch: Day 8 of the Awake Quotes

Dad asks about the November/December study-away program, and it takes me a minute to realize he’s talking to me. “Uh, it was okay.” Good one, Kate. I make a note to thank her. He doesn’t know about the shutting down or the trouble at school beyond sophomore year because last year, after the guitar-smashing episode, I told Principal Wertz my dad was killed in a hunting accident. He never bothered to check up on it, and now he calls my mother whenever there’s a problem, which means he actually calls Kate because Mom never bothers to check voicemail.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad, Kate Finch, Mr. Embry, Principal Wertz
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
11. Violet: 151 days till graduation Quotes

I look in the direction Brenda pointed and there he is. Theodore Finch leans against an SUV, hands in pockets, like he has all the time in the world and he expects me. I think of the Virginia Woolf lines, the ones from The Waves: “Pale, with dark hair, the one who is coming is melancholy, romantic. And I am arch and fluent and capricious, for he is melancholy, he is romantic. He is here.”

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Theodore Finch
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:
12. Finch: The night of the day my life changed Quotes

Water is peaceful. I am at rest. In the water, I am safe and pulled in where I can’t get out. Everything slows down—the noise and the racing of my thoughts. I wonder if I could sleep like this, here on the bottom of the bathtub, if I wanted to sleep, which I don’t. I let my mind drift. I hear words forming as if I’m sitting at the computer already.

In March of 1941, after three serious breakdowns, Virginia Woolf wrote a note to her husband and walked to a nearby river. She shoved heavy stones into her pocket and dove into the water. “Dearest,” the note began, “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times…So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker)
Related Symbols: Water (the Blue Hole, Swimming Pools, Rivers)
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
18. Finch: Day 15 (still) Quotes

I made the mistake of talking about it once. A few years ago, I asked my then good friend Gabe Romero if he could feel sound and see headaches […] and he went home and told his parents, and they told my teacher, who told the principal, who told my parents, who said to me, Is it true, Theodore? Are you telling stories to your friends? The next day it was all over school, and I was officially Theodore Freak. One year later, I grew out of my clothes because, it turns out, growing fourteen inches in a summer is easy. It’s growing out of a label that’s hard.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad, Gabe “Roamer” Romero
Page Number: 141
Explanation and Analysis:
21. Finch: Day 22 and I’m still here Quotes

In 2013, a man in Pennsylvania committed suicide via carbon monoxide, but when his family tried to rescue him, they were overcome by the fumes and every single one of them died before rescue crews could save them.

I think of my mom and Decca and Kate, and then I hit the opener, and up goes the door, and out I go into the wild blue yonder. For the first mile or so, I feel high and excited, like I just ran into a burning building and saved lives, like I’m some sort of hero.

But then a voice in me says, You’re no hero. You’re a coward. You only saved them from yourself.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Kate Finch, Decca Finch
Page Number: 161
Explanation and Analysis:

“Why are we doing this, Dec?”

“Because they shouldn’t be in there mixed with the good. They like to trick you.”

And somehow I know what she means. I think of the Bartlett Dirt and all its mean words, not just about me but about every student who’s strange or different. Better to keep the unhappy, mad, bad, unpleasant words separate, where you can watch them and make sure they don’t surprise you when you’re not expecting them.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey, Finch’s Dad, Kate Finch, Decca Finch, Josh Raymond
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
25. Finch: Day 27 (I am still here) Quotes

I can go downstairs right now and let my mom know how I’m feeling—if she’s even home—but she’ll tell me to help myself to the Advil in her purse and that I need to relax and stop getting myself worked up, because in this house there’s no such thing as being sick unless you can measure it with a thermometer under the tongue. Things fall into categories of black and white—bad mood, bad temper, loses control, feels sad, feels blue.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
26. Violet: 133 days to go Quotes

I set her glasses down on her dresser. “Thanks for the loan,” I say. “But they make my head hurt. And they’re ugly.” I can almost hear her laughing.

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Eleanor Markey
Related Symbols: Eleanor’s Glasses
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
28. Finch: Day 28 Quotes

For once, I don’t want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundred different people, most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn’t worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs—here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey
Page Number: 202-03
Explanation and Analysis:
32. Finch: The first warm day Quotes

“What are you most afraid of?”

I think, I’m most afraid of Just be careful. I’m most afraid of the Long Drop. I’m most afraid of Asleep and impending, weightless doom. I’m most afraid of me.

“I’m not.”

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey
Related Symbols: Water (the Blue Hole, Swimming Pools, Rivers)
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
42. Finch: Days 65 and 66 Quotes

The thing I know about bipolar disorder is that it’s a label. One you give crazy people. I know this because I’ve taken junior-year psychology and I’ve seen movies and I’ve watched my father in action for almost eighteen years, even though you could never slap a label on him because he would kill you. Labels like bipolar say This is why you are the way you are. This is who you are. They explain people away as illnesses.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Finch’s Dad, Mr. Embry
Page Number: 271-72
Explanation and Analysis:
44. Finch: Days 66 and 67 Quotes

Most people haven’t heard of [the Nest Houses], but one old man tells me, “Sorry you came all this way. I’m afraid they been ate up by the weather and the elements.”

Just like all of us. The Nest Houses have reached their life expectancy. I think of the mud nest we made for the cardinal, all those years ago, and wonder if it’s still there. I imagine his little bones in his little grave, and it is the saddest thought in the world.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Mr. Embry
Related Symbols: The Cardinal
Page Number: 276
Explanation and Analysis:
45. Finch: Day 71 Quotes

I want to get away from these kids who never did anything to anyone except be born with different brains and different wiring […] I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have an illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood. I want to get away from all the labels.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker)
Page Number: 284
Explanation and Analysis:

“Why do you do that? Don’t you get tired of people talking about you?”

“Including you?”

She goes quiet.

“I do it because it reminds me to be here, that I’m still here and I have a say in the matter.”

She puts one leg in the car and says, “I guess now you know you’re not the only freak.” It’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Amanda Monk (speaker), Demetrius
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
48. Violet: March 21 and beyond Quotes

“Listen, I’m the freak. I’m the weirdo. I’m the troublemaker. I start fights. I let people down. Don’t make Finch mad, whatever you do. Oh, there he goes again, in one of his moods. Moody Finch. Angry Finch. Unpredictable Finch. Crazy Finch. But I’m not a compilation of symptoms. Not a casualty of shitty parents and an even shittier chemical makeup. Not a problem. Not a diagnosis. Not an illness. Not something to be rescued. I’m a person.”

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey, Eleanor Markey, Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad, Gabe “Roamer” Romero
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:

“He’ll be back. He always comes back.” That’s just his thing. It’s what he does.

I want to say to her and Charlie and Brenda, to Kate, to his mom: Doesn’t anyone care why he comes and goes? Have you ever stopped to think that something might be wrong with this?

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Decca Finch (speaker), Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad, Kate Finch, Charlie Donahue, Brenda
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
49. Finch: Day 80 (a muthaf#@*ing world record) Quotes

All I know is what I wonder: Which of my feelings are real? Which of the mes is me? There is only one me I’ve ever really liked, and he was good and awake as long as he could be.

I couldn’t stop the cardinal’s death, and this made me feel responsible. In a way, I was—we were, my family and I—because it was our house that was built where his tree used to be, the one he was trying to get back to. But maybe no one could have stopped it.

“You have been in every way all that anyone could be…If anybody could have saved me it would have been you.”

Related Characters: Theodore Finch (speaker), Violet Markey
Related Symbols: The Cardinal
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:
54. Violet: May 3 Quotes

In all his words, the preacher doesn’t mention suicide. The family is calling his death an accident because they didn’t find a proper note […]. I stand, thinking how it wasn’t an accident at all and how “suicide victim” is an interesting term. The victim part of it implies they had no choice. And maybe Finch didn’t feel like he had a choice, or maybe he wasn’t trying to kill himself at all but just going in search of the bottom.

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Theodore Finch, Finch’s Mom, Finch’s Dad
Related Symbols: Water (the Blue Hole, Swimming Pools, Rivers)
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis:
55. Violet: May—weeks 1, 2, and 3 Quotes

Then he adds, “I feel responsible.”

I want to send his computer and books crashing to the floor. You can’t feel responsible. I’m responsible. Don’t try to take that from me.

He continues, “But I’m not. I did what I felt I could do. Could I have done more? Possibly. Yes. We can always do more. It’s a tough question to answer, and, ultimately, a pointless one to ask. You might be feeling some of the same emotions and having some of these same thoughts.”

Related Characters: Violet Markey (speaker), Mr. Embry (speaker), Theodore Finch
Page Number: 347
Explanation and Analysis:

She looks at me. “In those moments, none of it matters. It’s like that stuff is happening to someone else because all you feel is dark inside, and that darkness just kind of takes over. You don’t even really think about what might happen to the people you leave behind, because all you can think about is yourself.”

Related Characters: Amanda Monk (speaker), Theodore Finch, Violet Markey
Page Number: 351
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.