Matthew Quick · 288 pages
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“You're different. And I'm different too. Different is good. But different is hard. Believe me, I know.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I feel like I’m broken—like I don’t fit together anymore. Like there’s no more room for me in the world or something. Like I’ve overstayed my welcome here on Earth, and everyone’s trying to give me hints about that constantly. Like I should just check out.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Not letting the world destroy you. That’s a daily battle.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“The whole time I pretend I have mental telepathy. And with my mind only, I’ll say — or think? — to the target, 'Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller
coaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never even
heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smells
to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to thatmiserable place you go every day. Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. That’s what they tell us at school, but if you keep getting on that train and going to the place you hate I’m going to start thinking the people at school are liars like the Nazis who told the Jews they were just being relocated to work factories. Don’t do that to us. Tell us the truth. If adulthood is working some death-camp job you hate for the rest of your life, divorcing your secretly criminal husband, being disappointed in your son, being stressed and miserable, and dating a poser and pretending he’s a hero when he’s really a lousy person and anyone can tell that just by shaking his slimy hand — if it doesn’t get any better, I need to know right now. Just tell me. Spare me from some awful fucking fate. Please.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Did you ever think about all of the nights you lived through and can't remember The ones that were so mundane your brain just didn't bother to record them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of nights come and go without being preserved by our memory. Does that ever freak you out? Like maybe your mind recorded all of the wrong nights?”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I'm trying to let him know what I'm about to do.
I'm hoping he can save me, even though I realize he can't.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“People should be nice to you, Leonard. You're a human being. You should expect people to be nice.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“There's a lot for you to live for. Good things are definitely in your future, Leonard. I'm sure of it. You have no idea how many interesting people you'll meet after high school's over. Your life partner, your best friend, the most wonderful person you'll ever know is sitting in some high school right now waiting to graduate and walk into your life - maybe even feeling all the same things you are, maybe even wondering about you, hoping that you're strong enough to make it to the future where you'll meet.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I'm sorry I couldn't be more than I was”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“You think someone is really important and different, but then you get to know them and it ruins everything”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you've never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose — allow smells
to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to that miserable place you go every day. Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“DO ANYTHING! SOMETHING! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with every breath you take.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I got to thinking that the world would be a better place if they gave medals to great teachers rather than just soldiers who kill their enemies in wars.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“That's basically the mantra of Herr Silverman's teaching - think for yourself and do what's right for you, but let others do the same.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“we can simultaneously be human and monster—that both of those possibilities are in all of us.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“The bullies are always popular.
Why?
People love power.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I'm going to kill you later today," I say to that guy in the mirror, and he just smiles back at me like he can't wait.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I can tell you get it -- you're different. And I know how hard being different can be. But I also know how powerful a weapon being different can be. How the world needs such weapons. Gandhi was different. All great people are. And unique people such as you and me need to seek out other unique people who understand -- so we don't get too lonely and end up where you did tonight”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“So the key is doing something that sets you apart forever in the minds of regular people.
Something that matters.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. That’s what they tell us at school, but if you keep getting on that train and going to the place you hate I’m going to start thinking the people at school are liars like the Nazis who told the Jews they were just being relocated to work factories. Don’t do that to us. Tell us the truth. If adulthood is working some death-camp job you hate for the rest of your life, divorcing your secretly criminal husband, being disappointed in your son, being stressed and miserable, and dating a poser and pretending he’s a hero when he’s really a lousy person and anyone can tell that just by shaking his slimy hand—if it doesn’t get any better, I need to know right now. Just tell me. Spare me from some awful fucking fate. Please.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I want to believe that happiness might at least be possible later on in life for people prone to sadness.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“My life will get better? You really believe that?" I ask.
“It can. If you’re willing to do the work.”
“What work?”
“Not letting the world destroy you. That’s a daily battle.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“You believe in the future now. It's easy for you, because you love the present.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“When people have awful ideas about your identity, that's just the way it will stay no matter what you do.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Although once when we were talking after class, Herr Silverman told me that when someone rises up and holds himself to a higher standard, even when doing so benefits others, average people resent it, mostly because they’re not strong enough to do the same.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Only you weren't regular at all -- you were full of magic.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Maybe that's why adults drink, gamble, and do drugs - because they can't get naturally lit anymore. Maybe we lose that ability as we get older.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“Keep weeding, Dad.
Weed your mind.
And man the great light.
Even when no one is looking”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“And I understood why he didn’t need friends or to be accepted at our shitty racist high school, because he had his music, and that was so much better than anything we had to offer.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
“I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
Matthew Quick
Born place: Philadelphia, The United States
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“When darkness comes and eats the light,
bury your fears on sorry night.
Because in the winter's darkest hours,
comes the feasting of the Vours.
You cannot see it, the life they stole.
Your body's there, but not your soul.”
― Simon Holt, quote from The Devouring
“Death is like an old whore in a bar--I'll buy her a drink but I won't go upstairs with her”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from To Have and Have Not
“The art of reading consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting non essentials.”
― Adolf Hitler, quote from Mein Kampf
“...sitting with him was like sitting by yourself; he didn't talk except when it suited him. You asked him a question in the morning and he might answer in the afternoon, or he might never.”
― Flannery O'Connor, quote from Wise Blood
“The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than a razor’s edge, sharper than a hound’s tooth, more agile than a mule deer. It is more elusive than the merest phantom. Perhaps it does not even exist; perhaps it is a phantom. ”
― Philip K. Dick, quote from VALIS
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