“Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“If we'd been on speaking terms, I might've told her that I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“It's a bad dream: my English teacher is standing naked at the foot of this slightly lumpy bed, clutching a pair of not-quite-white underpants in his hand, studying me with this creepy look on his face, the one he gets when he's reading aloud in class and wants us to think he's moved by the passage.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“As far as I could tell, he earned his hundred thousand a year by wandering the hallway with a Styrofoam cup of coffee, smiling at the pretty girls and scowling at the boys who didn't play sports. Somebody should have stuck a broom in his hand and made him an honest man.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“No one knows what love is," he told me. "If someone says they do, they're full of shit.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“What about Clinton?" I asked. "He's pretty interesting."
"Ugh." Dad looked disgusted. "That guy. He could stand out in the rain all day and not get wet.”
“Diane used to joke that I was getting in touch with my own inner asshole, but all I was really doing was claiming my American birthright. There's a sales professional lying dormant in each and every one of us, just waiting for a chance to blossom.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
“Stan and Rudy are grown men. It's too late to shape their minds, to teach them values and a sense of compassion. You have to do that when kids are young, before their personalities harden and they come to love their own ignorance.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Election
Tom Perrotta
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
Born date August 13, 1961
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“Reality is as thin as paper, and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character.”
― Bruno Schulz, quote from The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories
“Then one night I woke at three A.M. certain he was rotting like a chicken carcass. Only as I lowered him into the sink did I realize this was a crazy time to wash a baby and I began to cry because he was so trusting—I could do anything and he would go along with it, the little fool.”
― Miranda July, quote from The First Bad Man
“Instead, the lesson is that false beliefs, once they’ve become culturally entrenched—once they’ve become tribal badges of honor—are very difficult to change, and changing them is no longer simply a matter of educating people.”
― Joshua D. Greene, quote from Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
“The fact that this same basic approach helps such a wide range of willpower challenges, from depression to drug addiction, confirms that these three skills—self-awareness, self-care, and remembering what matters most—are the foundation for self-control.”
― Kelly McGonigal, quote from The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
“Once I had found the courage to tell Rebecca about the children in my head, it wasn't so hard in the coming months to tell Roberta.
On the train from Huddersfield one day in May I made a roll call of the usual suspects: Baby Alice; Alice 2, who was two years old and liked to suck sticky lollipops; Billy; Samuel; Shirley; Kato; and the enigmatic Eliza. There was boy I would grow particularly fond of named limbo, who was ten, but like Eliza he was still forming. There were others without names or specific behaviour traits. I didn't want to confuse the issue with this crowd of 'others' and just counted off the major players with their names, ages and personalities, which Roberta scribbled down on a pad. Then she looked slightly embarrassed. 'You know, I've met Billy on a few occasions, and Samuel once too,' she said. 'You're joking.' I felt betrayed. 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'I wanted it to come from you, Alice, when you were ready.' For some reason I pulled up my sleeves and showed he my arms. 'That's Kato,' I said, 'or Shirley.' She looked a bit pale as she studied the scars. I had feeling she didn't know what to say. The problem with counsellors is that they are trained to listen, not to give advice or diagnosis. We sat there with my arms extended over the void between us like evidence in court, then I pushed down my sleeves again. 'I'm so sorry, Alice,' she said finally and I shrugged. 'It's not your fault, is it?' Now she shrugged, and we were quiet once more.”
― quote from Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
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