Home > Work > What's Eating Gilbert Grape
1 " In a cement park across the street is this giant sculpture. It is a giant umbrella frame lying on its side. It's green. Stand under it, during a rainstorm, you'll still get wet - that's why it's art. "
― Peter Hedges , What's Eating Gilbert Grape
2 " I left this conversation hours ago, but somehow my mouth is still moving, words are still forming, and none have seemed to offend. Amazing, the mind. My mind, I mean. Not hers. "
3 " I stared at her - unable to accept that at one time I was growing inside her. I was once just a couple of cells. My father and my mother were naked something had to be satisfactory about it, because he came inside her and she got pregnant. She, like me, was once a baby in her mother's stomach and so on and so forth and so it goes. So it goes. "
4 " He loves to hide, but only if you take the time to find him. And while I suspect that's true for most people, only a retard or a kid would admit it. "
5 " Wait a minute, I'm thinking, was this another one of those conversations where what is meant and what is being said are not the same thing? "
6 " She doesn't acknowledge Tucker, and there's no thank you for the cigarettes. She says a person shows their gratitude by action, not by words. So I guess that means she thanks me by smoking every cigarette in every pack. "
7 " It's supposed to go bing-bing or bong-bong or ding-ding when tires go over it. The one at Dave's stopped working several years ago, and he won't have it fixed because he feels as I do - that none of us need to be reminded we exist. "
8 " I devised a test.I turned off the TV and instantly the snoring stopped. She began to move. When I felt her eyes about to open, I turned the TV back on and back to sleep she went. Then I'd turn it off and on - sometimes for millisecond - and she never failed me. Each time it was off, she's move and mutter - each time it was on, she'd sleep.By the time the headlights from Amy's Nova turned into our driveway, my suspicion had been confirmed. My mother has a more intimate, connected relationship with this television than she has ever had with me. "
9 " I never want to regret. 'Regret' is the ugliest word. "
10 " How can you kill a man who'd already been dead for years? "
11 " The more Christian you are in this town, the more makeup you wear. I've always thought that it's because if you were to die suddenly, you'd look better for God. "
12 " I was seven when he hung himself, and I don't remember all that much, and anything I did remember, I've managed to forget. "
13 " He sees me through the glass. We both nod like we give a small shit about each other. "
14 " Anyway, they took her body to McBurney's Funeral Home in Motley. They'll be planting her tomorrow. "
15 " My brother's costume is the exception. He looks like an American. In fact, he behaves like one. When he tried to pick up the first kid he knocked down, he smashed into several others, it snowballed, chaos ensued. My brother very much resembled America today in pretty much all things. "
16 " I have seen God and he is this girl. "
17 " A man who works all day, every day and loves each apple he uncrates, who cherishes each can of soup - a man like that surely puts us all to shame. "
18 " She loves me-she just doesn't know it yet. "
19 " No 'buts', Gilbert. You just make sense to me. It's nothing more special than that. "
20 " smiles and friendly nods are like fabric softeners for the face. "
