The Field Guide to the North American Teenager QUOTES

1 " Yes, we're all overly polite, forage for berries in the summers, and craft simple wooden objects of great beauty around the fire at night. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

2 " Why are you so mad at me?" Norris shouted back. The neighbors could definitely hear them now. His throat dry, but he didn't care. "I'm sorry if I interrupted one of your dates, or whatever, but I DID NOT DO ANYTHING! Ground me for leaving prom, ground me for drinking, but I didn't drive, I didn't have unprotected sex, I didn't even get high! You know that! You're supposed to be on my side here, Mom!"
"NO!" she hurled back. "Not on this, Norris" I can't be!"
"Why the hell not?!"
"You know damn well! Trayvon Martin," she began. "Tamir Rice, Cameron Tillman, so many others that I can't remember all their names anymore!"
Norris knew too well. It was almost a ritual, even back in Canada. They would sit as a family and watch quietly. "Be smart out there," Felix used to say.
"You're not a handsome blue-eyed little Ken doll who's going to get a slap on the wrist every time he messes up. That, tonight?" she said, pointing to the door. "Do you know what that was? Do you?!"
"I-"
"That was a fucking coin flip, Norris. That was the coin landing heads." Her finger dug into his chest, punctuating every other word she was saying, spittle flying at his face. "Heads. A good one. Officer Miller, who has four sons, and luckily, mercifully, thank Jesus saw someone else's kid back-talking him tonight."
She exhaled, her breath Thai-food hot against his face.
"Tails." Her voice broke. "Tails, and I would be at the morgue right now identifying you! With some man lecturing me about our blood alcohol level and belligerent language and how you had it coming. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

3 " We all mess things up. It’s what you do with the mess that matters. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

4 " It doesn’t matter if you make a mess. It matters that you fix it. Maybe the whole point of approaching life as origami that the documentary had missed was learning to fold your sharp edges. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

5 " Everyone's a dick by someone else's standards. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

6 " Most people—heck, most living beings—have fight or flight as their two responses to crisis. You, Norris? You're a poker. You don't fight; you poke, and then run away. I don't know why. Maybe so you can feel rightfully victimized? "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

7 " The way his mother loved him was occasionally vexing in how overwhelming it could be. Like the sun or some other celestial body; facing it too directly might kill him. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

8 " You’ve gotten gayer,” Norris noted after a long comfortable silence. Eric gasped and moved an exaggeratedly limp wrist to his chest, feigning dramatic outrage. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

9 " When you were the child of immigrants, you weren't just you; your success was also your parents' your cousins', your relatives' still struggling for life in Haiti or India, wishing they were you. It was your job, your preordained celestial existence or whatever, to make the most of it. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

10 " What on earth are you eating?” “Chicken, bacon, both pig and turkey, and sausage patty in the middle,” Goade said, almost proudly. “Does it taste like you’re running around a farm and biting a bunch of different animals in a row? "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

11 " The first skill an only child learns is to be alone and completely satisfied. Norris had fourteen years of experience under his belt; having someone else to talk to was nice, sure, but it had never been a necessity. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

12 " Aarti blinked at him, and as the moment stretched on, Norris felt like an old photograph developing in Aarti’s mind. An image suddenly forming. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

13 " But that was okay by him, he realized. Liam was going to be his teammate, and that was one label Norris was actually comfortable with. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

14 " You’re a little bit of a jock,” Liam mused. “If we’re going to boil individuals down to a single label that encompasses the whole of their being . . . between the hockey and the skiing and the fact that you spend a lot of time with cheerleaders trying to figure out how to successfully date ‘hot chicks,’ your closest category is, well, jock. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

15 " But, as his father had said: It doesn't matter if you make a mess. It matters that you fix it. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

16 " I'm the understudy for Negro on Ice "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

17 " By and large, Anderson High was an easy school. Not the people, obviously—walking land mines, each and every one of them—but the classes themselves were all fairly simple. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

18 " Um, Liam says that no one is normal,” Norris ventured now that it was clearly his turn again. “He says we’re all just different flavors of fucked-up, hiding it as best as we can. I’m starting to think that maybe he was right. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

19 " Well, I don’t have a car, okay!” Norris began to sputter, hearing his voice pitch higher. “Not everyone can just borrow their dad’s Rolls. That’s discrimination, Madison. Discrimination against pedestrians! "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

20 " Who they are when there are other people around isn’t who they are when they’re alone. "

― Ben Philippe , The Field Guide to the North American Teenager