Ellen Hopkins Quotations

For short term relaxation, I take a hot tub. It's my best way to unblock writers' block, too. For a bit longer relaxation, I enjoy camping. Just being in the wilderness, with no phones or computers or anything I have to do really refreshes my spirit.

Christmas is far and away my favorite holiday. I love everything about it, from the event that inspired it, hoping for a white one, to wrapping presents. But mostly I love having family and friends gathered, and sharing traditions.

Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

People inspire me. Everyone is such an individual and has unique stories. I'm a voyeur. I eavesdrop. Sometimes I ask questions. And sometimes people just want to tell me their stories.

There are people who think it's easier to write books in verse, and it's definitely not.

I write books for young adults because I truly connect with them on some very deep level. They are our hope, our future, and inspiring them to be the best they can be is very important to me.

I never actually plan sequels. They demand to be done.

And at some point I would like to talk my publisher into doing an anthology of my poetry alongside some teen readers poetry. It would be fun, and really wonderful to get their stuff out there.

Believe it or not, I sold my first novel, 'Crank,' with only seventy-five pages complete. It was in verse then, and it was hard-hitting then.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

Without poetry, stories would be told in sepia.

I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.

Either way, you are in charge. Jealousy works against you. It takes control away from you, hands it over to the opposition. Maintain control.

Alone everything changes. Some might call it distorted reality but it's exactly the place I need to be.

Falling in love with someone is the surest highway to hurt that I know. When the door to love opens, the window to control closes.

One kiss, I was totally hooked.

The universe is a big place. If I was lost up there, how would you ever find me

Life was good before I met the monster. After, life was great At least for a little while

You can turn your back but you can never really walk away.

So you want to know all about me. Who I am. What chance meeting of brush and canvas painted the face you see? What made me despise the girl in the mirror enough to transform her,turn her to into a stranger, only not. So you want to hear the whole story. Why I swerved off the high road, hard left to nowhere, recklessly indifferent to those coughing my dust, picked up speed no limits,no top end, just a high velocity rush to madness.

Faces ...I ...don't ...know ...the real ...me

Possibilities ...in the closet ...itching ...to break out ...but afraid of ...the fallout

...Things happened when you were little. Things you don't remember now, and don't want to. But they need to escape, need to worm their way out of that dark place in your brain where you keep them stashed.

Clear. Cold. Empty. Like how I feel right now. Love is strange. One minute you’re jungle fever. The next you’re Artic winter.

I'm in love. And I like how that feels. And I hate how that feels. Because love is an invention of fiction writers.

All I can do is lie here, brain turning somersaults. It's nights like these when memories stir, whipping themselves into stiff peaks of pain.

Coyotes hunt in packs, and so do assholes.

Innocence eroded into nightmare. All because of very bad touch. Love, corrupted.

Love means holding on to someone just as hard as you can because if you don't, one blink and they might disappear...forever.

Sometimes the little things in life mean the most.

Life is all about change. If it were static, think about how boring it would be. You can't be afraid of it, and you can't worry that you'll mess things up. You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them.

Forgiveness is easy. Trust is much more difficult, and should never be given lightly.

Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.

I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.

The wind kicks in stronger, branches clatter. Or maybe skeletons. Bones of abandonment. Ghosts that will never be.

Why are people so afraid of giving their kids necessary information that might prevent an unwanted pregnancy or disease? But they're not worried about the violent nature of video games or movies or books...

HAPPY EVER AFTER is a concept I'll never believe in. I would be content to sample some little taste of happiness today, tonight, right now. Though I know without a doubt that tomorrow will come saturated with pain. Life is like that. At least my life. And honestly, I cant think of anyone whose life is any different. The price tag for joy is misery. [...]

I can't change what has happened in the past, Kaeleigh. I can only promise to make the future better.

...what good would it do to shutter your windows, never dream of rainbows or find hope in promises? Why choose to walk away rather than hold your ground and fight for love?

Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die.

Anger is easier than forgiveness.

I don't need more pain in my life. Why did I invite it in? Do I have to feel pain to believe I feel anything at all?

Only by confronting your demons can you ever hope to conquer them.

Learning by example is valid, but when you have the information to know that turning in a certain direction can lead you to a very wrong place, most of the "blame" is on the individual.

This time when we kiss, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel it in my heart. And I realize love isn't about sex. It's about connection.

Torch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.

Or might the soul clone itself, create a perfect imitation of something yet to be defined? In this way, can a reflection be altered?

I carry a strong anti-drug message, and it's important young people especially hear a "real" story about addiction and how it affects not only the addict but also the people who love him/her, rather than "just say no."

Anger is a valid emotion. It's only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don't want to do.

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.

Girls get screwed. Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things. The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feel cheap for doing exactly what they beg for. The way they get to play you, all the while claiming they love you and making you believe it's true. The way it's okay to gift their heart one day, a backhand the next, to move on to the apricot when the peach blushes and bruises. These things make me believe God's a man after all.

In my books my characters experience things as they are. My books allow youth an honest look at important issues affecting them. As adults we want to believe things like sex abuse or drug use are not happening anymore, or happening less and less, but that's not the case and we need to acknowledge that. We can't make life prettier for youth, but we can arm them.

you fly until you crash two days two nights no sleep, no food, come down off the monster YOU CRASH REAL HARD

I want the part of you that you refuse to give.

Taking no chances means wasting your dreams..

Yesterday influences today, thus creates tomorrow.

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.

imperfections create character...

Think long and hard before offering your heart to someone who can only accept it part-time

Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way. Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn. And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light.

I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.

Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound. Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light. Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeapordy. Pray you could somehow stop uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.

When you've only got one little shimmer of sunshine, you capture it best you can.

...life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live.

Many readers share their stories with me and if one speaks to me (or if the same theme keeps coming at me), I will research it and decide if it would make a good book. But, straight down to it, people inspire me.

HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so WHY push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is WHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway, WHEN did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person WHO lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you - WHAT is perfect.

Funny thing about the monster. The worse he treats you, the more you love him.

The problem with resolutions is they're only as solid as the person making them.

I think parents should know what their children are reading, and if they truly object, they should tell their kids why, rather than summarily removing a book from their possession.

You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.

Everyone's afraid of everybody else...maybe because we're all afraid of ourselves.

Addiction is rarely conquered alone.

Bad choices or good, if you never take chances, someone else will build your life for you.

Ghosts don't scare me. Flesh and blood people do.

I can see why she feels left behind. Maybe even discarded. Is that why she refuses to accept my love and return it? Afraid that love doesn't last? Doesn't really exist? Afraid if her own father can withdraw his love (or at least the manifestation of his love), that maybe she somehow isn't worthy of the emotion?

I mean, who wants to trudge through life, doing everything just right? Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.

A Problem Is really just a solution in need of a reason to exist.

‎Perfect? How can you define a word without concrete meaning?

Grown up? Me? I suppose I have. Killing things, and almost killing myself, must have changed me some, after all.

Every high has an equal, measurable low.

Don't you know? We're connected by an invisible chain. It's very long, very light. But also very strong. It can't rust. Can't break. And the only thing that can sever it is if you ever stop loving me.

When I was little, my friends would gush over wedding gowns and honeymoons. But I saw too many people flush decades together down the toilet over money or kids or meaningless flings. My own parents chose to stay married, which I think is rather funny, since they show about as much affection for each other as pit bulls in a ring. Tying the knot means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.

It's probably weird to think about an addiction like it's a sentient being, but that's how it feels. Like it's something living inside you. Something you can't get rid of because killing it means killing you.

It is hard to believe that something that seems so permanent was once so different. Change. I guess that really is one thing you can count on...

And how can it be he's so in love with me? To grow up without love, and still have so much inside?

The truth is, I don't have a real clue what love is - how to find it, how to give it. Once upon a time I thought I knew.

Communication Was never big in my house. We sat together over dinner, but the only sound you'd hear was crunching and chewing and the little ones asking for more, please. We lived, all boxed up in invisible containers. We hardly knew the people we called sister or father. Jackie and I were the exceptions to that rule.

Defiance rose up like vomit. I swung back and yelled, "Don't ever do that again!

I felt angry, frustrated. I felt I didn't belong, not in my church, not in my home, not in my skin. Amidst the chaos, i felt alone, in need of a friend instead of a sister, someone detached from my world. The "woman's role" theory disgusted me. I would soon be a woman, and I knew I could never perform as expected. I was tired of my mom's submission to her religion, to her husband's sick quest for an heir, to his abuse. I was sick of my dad, of reaching for him as he fell farther away from us and into the arms of Johnnie WB.

hindsight is gained through experience

Fear is a better friend than you, who feel nothing, beneath the weight of my pain.

Am I more afraid Of taking a chance and learning I'm somebody I don't know, or of risking new territory, only to find I'm the same old me? There is comfort in the tried and true. Breaking ground might uncover a sinkhole, one impossible to climb out of. And setting sail in uncharted waters might mean capsizing into a sea monster's jaws. Easier to turn my back on these things than to try tjem and fail. And yet, a whisper insists I need to know if they are or aren't integral to me. Status quo is a swamp. And stagnation is slow death.

One Time, One Day between Davie and Roberta , I asked my mom why she persisted, kept on having baby after baby, She looked at me, at a spot between my eyes, blinking like I had suddenly fallen crazy. She paused before answering as if to confide would legitimize my fears. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the chair. I touched her hand and I thought she might cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role. I decided if it was my role, I'd rather disappear.

And this is a kiss like none before, a kiss that could overcome the dark of deep space night. It's a falling star, flame, ice. It's pure as water from a snow-fed mountain spring. This is what you dream a kiss to be. To have a kiss just like this each and every day! How satisfying life would be.

Not exactly. I see a girl who wants to present someone special to the world. Someone beautiful. The pinnacle of beauty. But she has lost her hold on reality. Real beauty isn’t thin. It isn’t size two, unless you happen to be four foot ten. What the world sees when they look at you is someone who believes self-worth is all about how she looks, and that very often means that what she’s missing is love. Not someone else’s love. But love and respect for herself.

But Hey, Guess What Crazy means I'm not liable for my actions. So screw it, I'll go home, propped up on Prozac against distractions

She is angle. I am curve. Together, we are geometric sculpture, and we make perfect sense.

Love Is a curious thing. Sometimes it barrels into you, leaves you breathless. Other times, it comes in- to your life, a tentative beam of morning sun sneaking through the blinds, and you think this light isn't possible. The shutters are drawn. Night should linger on. I don't feel like waking. Yet the room comes slowly lit. Sleep slithers away, and at last you can no longer deny the dawning.

Just keep on shining that light. The rest will take care of itself.

When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.