Turtles All the Way Down

by

John Green

Daisy is Aza's best friend. She is bubbly, outgoing, and absolutely loves boys and Star Wars. Her life motto is "break hearts, not promises." She writes weekly installments of an ongoing fanfiction about Chewbacca's love life and is diligent about replying to reader comments about the story. The story features a character named Ayala, who shares all of Aza's personality traits that Daisy finds insufferable. When Daisy hears that Pickett Engineering is offering a reward for information that helps the investigation to find the disappeared Mr. Pickett, Daisy ropes Aza into her plan to find Mr. Pickett and get rich. When Davis gives Aza and Daisy money to keep quiet about what they discover about Mr. Pickett, Daisy uses her half of the money to get on more equal footing with Aza: she quits her job at Chuck E. Cheese's, buys a car, and buys a laptop. When Aza tells Daisy that she finds these choices irresponsible, Daisy finally admits that she thinks Aza self-centered, spoiled, and thinks she's a horrible friend. They make up after Aza recovers from their car accident, and Daisy decides to kill off Ayala in her fanfiction. Daisy is adamant throughout the novel that being poor doesn't make a person noble.

Daisy Quotes in Turtles All the Way Down

The Turtles All the Way Down quotes below are all either spoken by Daisy or refer to Daisy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity, Selfhood, and Mental Illness Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

... and meanwhile I was thinking that if half the cells inside of you are not you, doesn't that challenge the whole notion of me as a singular pronoun, let alone the author of my fate?

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Mychal
Related Symbols: Bacteria (C. diff), Circles and Spirals
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I've got a theory about uniforms. I think they design them so that you become, like, a nonperson, so that you're not Daisy Ramirez, a Human Being, but instead a thing that brings people pizza and exchanges their tickets for plastic dinosaurs. It's like the uniform is designed to hide me.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

And he was obviously a person. Like, what even makes you a person? He had a body and a soul and feelings, and he spoke a language, and he was an adult, and if he and Rey were in hot, hairy, communicative love, then let's just thank God that two consenting, sentient adults found each other in a dark and broken galaxy.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Related Symbols: The Sky, Stars, and Astronomy
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

I'd probably killed myself with sepsis because of some stupid childhood ritual that didn't even prove what I wanted it to prove, because what I wanted to know was unknowable, because there was no way to be sure about anything.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

"I know you think you're poor or whatever, but you know nothing about being actually poor."
"Okay, I'll shut up about it," I said.
"You're so stuck in your own head," she continued. "It's like you genuinely can't think about anyone else." I felt like I was getting smaller.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy (speaker)
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

When I was little, I knew monsters weren't, like, real. But I also knew I could be hurt by things that weren't real. I knew that made-up things mattered, and could kill you.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Ayala
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

It's just, like, this isn't going to be some story where the poor, penniless girl gets rich and then realizes that truth matters more than money and establishes her heroism by going back to being the poor, penniless girl, okay?

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Davis Pickett, Sr.
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Page Number: 241
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your own.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Mychal
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis:
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Turtles All the Way Down PDF

Daisy Quotes in Turtles All the Way Down

The Turtles All the Way Down quotes below are all either spoken by Daisy or refer to Daisy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity, Selfhood, and Mental Illness Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

... and meanwhile I was thinking that if half the cells inside of you are not you, doesn't that challenge the whole notion of me as a singular pronoun, let alone the author of my fate?

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Mychal
Related Symbols: Bacteria (C. diff), Circles and Spirals
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I've got a theory about uniforms. I think they design them so that you become, like, a nonperson, so that you're not Daisy Ramirez, a Human Being, but instead a thing that brings people pizza and exchanges their tickets for plastic dinosaurs. It's like the uniform is designed to hide me.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

And he was obviously a person. Like, what even makes you a person? He had a body and a soul and feelings, and he spoke a language, and he was an adult, and if he and Rey were in hot, hairy, communicative love, then let's just thank God that two consenting, sentient adults found each other in a dark and broken galaxy.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Related Symbols: The Sky, Stars, and Astronomy
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

I'd probably killed myself with sepsis because of some stupid childhood ritual that didn't even prove what I wanted it to prove, because what I wanted to know was unknowable, because there was no way to be sure about anything.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

"I know you think you're poor or whatever, but you know nothing about being actually poor."
"Okay, I'll shut up about it," I said.
"You're so stuck in your own head," she continued. "It's like you genuinely can't think about anyone else." I felt like I was getting smaller.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy (speaker)
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

When I was little, I knew monsters weren't, like, real. But I also knew I could be hurt by things that weren't real. I knew that made-up things mattered, and could kill you.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Ayala
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

It's just, like, this isn't going to be some story where the poor, penniless girl gets rich and then realizes that truth matters more than money and establishes her heroism by going back to being the poor, penniless girl, okay?

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Davis Pickett, Sr.
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.

Related Characters: Daisy (speaker), Aza Holmes
Page Number: 241
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your own.

Related Characters: Aza Holmes (speaker), Daisy, Mychal
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis: