How we cite our quotes:
Quote #1
She tried to put into words how it felt, what happened when it was good, when it was working, when the words were coming out of her before she knew what they were, bubbling up from her chest, like rhyming, like rapping, like jump-roping, she thought, jumping just before the rope hits your ankles. (2.139)
Check out what Rowell's doing with rhythm here—the tumble of words illustrates their meaning. We love the rapid succession of "rhyming/rapping/roping." Just because it's prose doesn't mean it can't also be poetry.
Quote #2
Cath felt like she was swimming in words. Drowning in them, sometimes. (10.3)
She's also drowning in the expectations of her new writing teacher, who's pushing for the words that don't come to her as easily as Simon Snow stories.
Quote #3
"The whole point of fanfiction," she said, "Is that you get to play inside somebody else's universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them...You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories—" (11.291)
In Cath's case, rewriting the rules means rewriting the main characters' sexuality. In her world, Baz and Simon are boyfriends.
Quote #4
"I mean, I can see why your professor wouldn't want you to write a Simon Snow story—the class isn't called Fanfiction-Writing—but I wouldn't call it plagiarism. Is it illegal?" (11.301)
The question is, how would the author feel about it? Would you feel weird if you saw fanfiction based on a book you wrote, or would you be flattered?
Quote #5
Switching from her Fiction-Writing homework to Simon and Baz was like realizing she'd been driving in the wrong gear. (17.23)
Another way to look at it: Writing your own fiction is like reading the classics; writing fanfiction is like reading airport novels. Writing your own fiction is like drinking green smoothies; writing fanfiction is like drinking soda. Writing your own fiction is… well, you get it. Moving on.
Quote #6
Nick had cared about the story; Cath hadn't. She'd cared about the writing. About the magic third thing that lived between them when they were working together. (18.31)
Writing can sometimes be more of a meditation—or, when you're working with another person, a conversation—than a means to a narrative end. The discipline can be more important than the outcome.
Quote #7
It was Nick's story. He'd just tricked her into writing it. He was an unreliable narrator, if ever she'd met one. (18.52)
An unreliable narrator is one who may or may not be telling the reader the truth. But Nick's not just bending the truth on the page; he's bending it in real life, which is decidedly less okay.
Quote #8
"Think about it, Cath. That's what makes a god—or a mother. There's nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself." (23.41)
Cath's mom isn't exactly a god, or even a minor deity, but that doesn't mean Professor Piper's wrong. It just means Cath's mom kind of sucks. But now it's Cath's turn to create something from nothing, if only she'll accept the challenge.
Quote #9
"I know Simon and Baz. I know what they think, how they feel… When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or… falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall." (23.45)
First Cath uses a cliché to describe writing (swimming upstream), then she puts it in her own unique voice (inventing the branches as she falls). That's what good writing is—digging below the surface and saying things in a way nobody ever has. Bonus points for awesome visuals.
Quote #10
Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can't quite keep up with gravity. (37.26)
Rowell uses lots of metaphors of losing control to describe the writing process. The cool thing is that if you feel like you're tumbling downhill, falling off a cliff, or jumping before the rope hits the ground, you're probably doing it right.