As a seasoned writer, Nicola Yoon has created stories that have touched many people’s lives. Her words tug at the heart and show the world through the eyes of multiple characters facing varying social and individual issues. With quotes, Nicola also showed her view of the world and her thoughts on numerous subjects. Being an avid social justice advocate, she has used her stories to bring attention to pressing issues like immigration, suicide, friendship, cultural integration, and family dynamics.
Nicola Yoon is a writer driven by the events occurring around her. She draws inspiration from her life and those close to her and has always written stories about her struggles with her thoughts. Nicola’s first novel, ‘Everything, Everything’ was inspired by her daughter’s birth.
The Pain of Isolation
That night she listened to the Nirvana album again. In Kurt Cobain’s voice, Irene heard a perfect and beautiful misery, a voice stretched so thin with loneliness and wanting that it should break. But his voice didn’t break, and there was a kind of joy in it too.
Nicola made this quote in her second novel ‘The Sun Is Also A Star.’ Irene was a woman who felt disconnected from the world. She was lonely and could not ask anyone for help as she thought they would never listen.
When Irene heard Nirvana’s album, she felt a new wave of loneliness that forced her to rethink her life. With nothing to show for all the years she lived, Irene decided to commit suicide as she felt it was the only escape from the pain she faced.
You’re not living if you’re not regretting.
Regret is a disease that grinds a person’s progress to a halt; this statement explains that to move forward, one has to let go of the pain and regret they have bottled up.
Love
We think we want all the time in the world with the people we love, but maybe what we need is the opposite. Just a finite amount of time, so we still think the other person is interesting. Maybe we don’t need acts two and three. Maybe love is best in act one.
Nicola Yoon has always stated she is a woman who believes in love, and the above quote gives a unique perspective on it. Many people believe that love should make two people want to spend their time together forever, but the above quote rethinks the thought and postulates that maybe love is much better if there is limited time between partners.
The reasoning is people will cherish the moment they spend with their loved ones even more if they only have limited time.
How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?
Why trust love even though it can vanish as soon as it appears? Why give everything for a feeling controlled by hormones? These are questions this statement asks. It explains that love can come and disappear suddenly, yet people give everything and do many things without a second thought while experiencing it.
Love is worth everything, everything.
Though it cannot be measured or predicted, love is a beautiful emotion that makes people happy and satisfied. It can save some from darkness and provide solace in a brutal world for others.
I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don’t want to love him. I really don’t. As strategies go, it’s not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words.
Natasha knew she was already in love, as Daniel captured her heart like no one ever did. She also talked about how kissing is just talking without words; this meant she was telling Daniel how she felt without saying it.
The Road to Despair
Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.
‘Everything, Everything’ is a novel that portrays dangerous love. It tells the story of Madeline, a young teen suffering from a rare condition called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, SCID. The above quote shows that life could be twisted depending on one’s approach. If a person wants happiness, they could choose to look for it, but if they crave despair, then having an alternate mindset would set them on that path.
Happiness
I’ve never seen 12 Years a Slave, and I’m never going to. I’m sure it’s a fine movie. It’s won many accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and near universal praise, so perhaps it’s more than fine. But I’m never going to see it because I don’t think that story is for me.
Nicola Yoon made this quote in a Cosmopolitan article. She said she would never see the famed 12 Years a Slave because she felt it was rooted in sadness. According to Nicola, too many movies and books portray sad events happening to black people.
The author said she wants to write stories on happy-ever-afters for black women and hopes her stories inspire a new generation of female black writers.
Cultural Diversity
When people talk about diversity … it’s almost always a political discussion, but all of these things are always just very personal. And Maddy looks the way she does because my little girl looks like that.
As a staunch supporter of diversity in literature, Nicola Yoon has advocated for more inclusion of people of color in romance. She talks about how worrying about her daughter after her birth inspired Maddy’s creation in ‘Everything, Everything.’
The Mortality of the Human Body
I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: we change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we’d be immortal. But some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don’t renew. They age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly’s hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can’t have both.
Maddy makes this statement about human fragility. She felt caged in an aging body and felt there was no escape from an inevitable end. She makes the above speech in pain as she knows the touch she felt from Olly will become just another memory in her mind.