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The Leftovers QUOTES

The Leftovers QUOTES

1 " 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

2 " 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

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

4 " 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

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

6 " 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

7 " 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

8 " 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

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

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

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

14 " There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. (67) "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

15 " Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault. (341) "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

16 " Things change all the time - abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason. But knowing that didn't do you that much good, apparently. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

17 " Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer — that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with people you’d left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn’t love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

18 " We all basically live in a world that we define by the people who have disappeared. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

19 " Back then, when everybody thought the world would last forever, nobody had time for anything. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers

20 " When your words are futile, you’re better off keeping them to yourself, or never even thinking them in the first place. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers