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Tom Perrotta QUOTES

Tom Perrotta QUOTES

1 " Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her. "

― Tom Perrotta , Mrs. Fletcher

2 " I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make them important to the people who love them is that there’s always another perspective. "

― Tom Perrotta

3 " Nora had been training herself not to think too much about her kids. Not because she wanted to forget them - not at all - but because she wanted to remember them more accurately. For the same reason, she tried not to look too often at old photographs or videos...After a while, these scraps hardened into a kind of official narrative that crowded out thousands of equally valid memories, shunting the losers to some cluttered basement storage area in her brain. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

4 " To this day, she’s still sad. Because there’s not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I’m just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And it didn’t hurt me at all. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

5 " Quite a metaphor. The person in the most pain wins. Does that mean I get a Blue Ribbon? "

― Tom Perrotta

6 " These days he was like a zombie, all grim business, just another jerk with an erection. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

7 " Next time she’d have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy’s face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some terrible mystery had just been solved. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

8 " I’m only human, she told herself. There’s not enough room in my heart for everyone. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

9 " Laurie herself was more focused on the years when her kids were little, when she felt so necessary and purposeful, a battery all charged up with love. Every day she used it up and every night it got miraculously replenished. Nothing had ever been as good as that. "

― Tom Perrotta

10 " It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

11 " They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

12 " That’s why we get involved with other people, right? Not just for their bodies, but for everything else, too – their dreams and their scars and their stories. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

13 " Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

14 " Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

15 " After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice. "

― Tom Perrotta , Little Children

16 " Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for the next generation. While the university's busy exploiting you for cheap labor, you somehow have to produce a boring thesis that no one will read, and find someone willing to publish it as a book. And then, if you're unsually talented and extraordinarily lucky, you just might be able to secure a one-year, nonrenewable appointment teaching remedial composition to football players in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Internet's booming, and the kids we gave C pluses to are waltzing out of college and getting rich on stock options while we bust our asses for a pathetic stipend that doesn't even cover the rent. "

― Tom Perrotta , Little Children

17 " It’s a matter of dignity,” the Chief explained. “At a certain point, that’s all you have left. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

18 " I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

19 " He knew for a fact that it was possible to fall and just keep falling. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

20 " All through that winter and into the spring, when our Tuesday and Thursday-night dinner shifts were done, Matt and I would sit at the long table near the salad bar and plan his end-of-the-year party, our voices echoing importantly in the cavernous wood-panelled dining hall. "

― Tom Perrotta , Joe College