Home > Author > Akemi Dawn Bowman
1 " When you live with wolves, you learn to howl,' he says . . . 'the wolf is dangerous, and the howl is a kind of pain. If you spend too much time around people whose souls are hurting, eventually your soul starts to cry out too. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman , Harley in the Sky
2 " We only get one life to live--live it for yourself, not anyone else. Because when you're on your deathbed, you're going to be wishing you had. When everyone else is on theirs, I guarantee, they aren't going to be thinking about your life. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman , Starfish
3 " There’s nobody in the world who would call Lea annoying. Not even me, and I’m usually annoyed by most things with faces. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman , Summer Bird Blue
4 " I snort and pull my hair up into a high bun. It takes three tries to get it right because apparently my hair is as stubborn as I am. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman ,
5 " If I can’t figure out how to live on my own一how to do things on my own一how am I supposed to live at all? "
6 " Death doesn't rid of us of our feelings. It just stops us from changing the narrative. "
7 " No tengo la valentía de ir más allá de mi zona de confort. Y mi zona de confort es, obviamente estar sola e invisible. "
8 " No tengo la valentía de ir más allá de mi zona de confort. Y mi zona de confort es, obviamente, estar sola e invisible. "
9 " I'd rather have an ugly face than an ugly heart. "
10 " I'm not looking at them, Jamie says softly. "I'm looking at you." When I bring up my eyes, I'm looking at him too. Like, really looking at him. It's hard to breathe when all the colors of his face are so rich and intoxicating-pale blue eyes, a honey tan, and dark chocolate hair. How could someone so beautiful be looking at me the way he is, with half of a smile and affection in his gaze? What does he see? And then I realize. He sees the same thing I see when I look at him. He sees something beautiful. "
11 " When I look over my shoulder, I see Jamie watching me with the same adoring smile time he has from the first time I met him. Jamie is not a starfish. Not even close. "
12 " I feel like I have the world, and even though Prizm isn't in it, Hiroshi is. His family is. His art is. He's filling a void I never knew was there, with his stories and his family and his paintings and the kindness he never seems to run out of. "
13 " I need to be strong enough to move away on my own, to pull Mom's hooks out of my heart, to forget about Uncle Max. I need to be strong enough to carry all the guilt of what happened to my family because of me. "
14 " I'll be right back," she says, and as soon as she disappears into the next room, I feel like someone has yanked my social crutch out from under my arm. I'm floundering. All I can think about is Emery coming back so I can have someone to hide behind. "
15 " We all have to dream our own dreams. We only get one life to live—live it for yourself, not anyone else. "
16 " Beauty isn’t a single thing. Beauty is dreaming一it’s different for everyone, and there are so many versions of it that you mostly have no control over how you see it "
17 " But some people are just starfish--they need everyone to fill the roles that they assign. They need the world to sit around them, pointing at them and validating their feelings. But you can't spend your life trying to make a starfish happy, because no matter what you do, it will never be enough. They will always find a way to make themselves the center of attention, because it's the only way they know how to live. "
18 " Don't live to please the starfish, especially when their happiness is at the expense of yours. That is not love. That is narcissism. There's an entire ocean out there, Kiko--swim in it. "
19 " I want to find self-worth without needing it to come from someone's approval. "
20 " I draw a girl without a face, drawing somebody else’s face onto her own reflection. "
