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Empire Falls QUOTES

Empire Falls QUOTES

1 " What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words? "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

2 " He’d meant to forgive his brother, maybe even imagined he had. He’d also meant to learn to trust him, but instead merely fell into the habit of waiting for him to fuck up again. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

3 " Interesting, Miles thought. Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more comfort from His remoteness. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

4 " You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand? "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

5 " One of the odd things about middle age...was the strange decisions a man discovers he’s made by not really making them. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

6 " To his surprise he...discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something…that you cared about a great deal. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

7 " And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

8 " After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

9 " Not giving a shit, she decided, is like the defrost option on a car's heater that miraculously unfogs the windshield, allowing you to see where you're headed. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

10 " The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

11 " My God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about -- acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

12 " They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving, "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

13 " To his surprise, she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, a kiss so full of affection that it dispelled the awkwardness, even as it caused Miles' heart to plummet, because all kisses are calibrated, and this one revealed the great chasm between affection and love. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

14 " Just because things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them. If they happened fast, you'd be alert for all kinds of suddenness, aware that speed was trump. "Slow" works in an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there's plenty of time to prepare, which conceals the central fact, that no matter how slow things go, you'll always be slower. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

15 " It pleased him to imagine God as someone like his mother, someone beleagured by too many responsibilities, too dog-tired to monitor an energetic boy every minute of the day, but who, out of love and fear for his safety, checked in on him whenever she could. Was this so crazy? ...Miles liked the idea of a God who, when He at last had the oppotunity to return His attention to His children, might shake His head with wonder and mutter, "Jesus. Look what they're up to now." A distractible God, perhaps, one who'd be startled to discover so many of His children way up in trees since the last time He looked. A God whose hand would go rushing to His mouth in fear in that instant of recognition that - good God! - that kid's going to hurt himself. A God who could be surprised by unanticipated pride - glory be, that boy is a climber! "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

16 " The sad, fucking truth was that no matter who you are, you never, ever, get your fill. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

17 " ...aware, as always, that the truth isn't much of substitute for a good answer. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

18 " Bullshitting god would be Max's plan in a nutshell. Miles could even guess his father's opening gambit. He'd point out to God that if He expected better results, He ought to have given Max better character to work with, instead of sending him into battle so poorly equipped. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

19 " The cutthroat savagery of high school romance inspired in nearly all adults a collective amnesia. Having survived it themselves, they locked those memories far away in some dark chamber of their subconscious where things that are too terrible to contemplate are permanently stored. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls

20 " But of course everything had conspired to spoil her entrance, which only went to prove what Janine already knew: that no matter how well you planned something, God always planned better. If He was feeling stingy that day and didn't want you to have some little thing you had your heart set on, then you weren't going to get it and that was all there was to it. "

― Richard Russo , Empire Falls