“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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“A few days earlier, Chess and Thomas had driven to Spokane for a cheap hamburger. They walked in downtown Spokane and stumbled onto a drunk couple arguing.
"Get the fuck away from me!" the drunk woman yelled at her drunk husband, who squeezed his hand into a fist like he meant to hit her.
Thomas and Chess flinched, then froze, transported back to all of those drunken arguments they'd witnessed and survived.
The drunk couple in downtown Spokane pulled at each other's clothes and hearts, but they were white people. Chess and Thomas knew that white people hurt each other, too. Chess knew that white people felt pain just like Indians, Nerve endings, messages to the brain, reflexes. The doctor swung hammer against knee, and the world collapsed.
"You fucker!" the white woman yelled at her husband, who opened his hands and held them out to his wife. An offering. That hand would not strike her. He pleaded with his wife until she fell back into his arms. That white woman and man held each other while Chess and Thomas watched. A hundred strangers walked by and never noticed any of it.
After that, Chess and Thomas had sat in the van in a downtown parking lot. Thomas began to weep, deep ragged tears that rose along his rib cage, filled his mouth and nose, and exploded out.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from Reservation Blues
“This is April," he said, holding up the chicken. "She's the only friend I have left. I saved her from an evil chef at Tavern on the Green, and we've pledged eternal friendship.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from The Empress's Tomb
“The bartenders are the regular band of Jack, and the heavenly drummer who looks up to the sky with blue eyes, with a beard, is wailing beer-caps of bottles and jamming on the cash register and everything is going to the beat - It's the beat generation, its béat, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown.”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from Desolation Angels
“Good God, Keith."
"Yes, I've talked to Him too and I'm still waiting on his Guidance...”
― John Grisham, quote from The Confession
“So what you’re saying is Nate isn’t sex on a stick?” Emma asked.
Casey chuckled. “Nate is barely sex on a low fat wheat-thin. But I sowed a few wild oats back in my day, so I’m totally satisfied with what I have.” She bent over to grab up her abandoned container and silverware. Waving her fork at Emma, she said, “You, on the other hand, have a bag of oats needing satisfying.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Let’s leave my oats out of this please.”
― Katie Ashley, quote from The Proposition
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