“Seriously, how many times can a person break before the only things left are shattered fragments too small to piece back together?”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything to change it.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There’s a big difference between being happy and being selfish. Choose to be happy. Fire truck the rest.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You said that life's just like skating; I just need to kick forward and take a chance, push off the ground and follow through. And when everything works out, I'll coast.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Tommy’s three years old today, that means you raised him for three years. You. And you did an amazing job because look at him,” she says, pointing to the pictures. “Look how beautiful he is. How happy he is. You did that, Josh. You gave him a life worth smiling about.” She pauses a beat. “We’re not just here to celebrate Tommy’s birthday. We’re all here to celebrate you.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There are some sacrifices greater than love. And some loves greater than any sacrifice. Tommy’s greater than both.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Do you have a safe place, Becca?”
I release a shaky breath, but I can’t seem to look away. “Yes,” I whisper. And I hesitate, just for a moment, from telling him the truth. “You.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There are so many things in my future that absolutely terrify me, but loving you for the rest of it isn’t one of them.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You know what’s worse than your landlady calling you out on wearing cologne purely because you want to impress her granddaughter? I’ll tell you what. Being in the confined space of a truck while your son tells said granddaughter about how you paid him five moneys for him to tell you about what she said about you. Yeah. That’s happening.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Some things will always be beautiful, even in the face of death.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And real life—it was a fucking asshole.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“When you spend your whole life faking happiness, it becomes a second emotion.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Year—I can’t even find it in myself to look forward to the next day, let alone three hundred and sixty-five of them. ”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Please, please be patient with me. Because I really don’t want to let go of this. And you—I don’t want to let go of you.” My voice drops to a whisper. “Of us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I don’t want my past to determine my future—and my future is you, Josh.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You and Tommy…” She places my hand over her heart. “…you own me in here.” And even as I feel her heart beat against my palm, I wonder if she knows that she just made mine stop.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I press my lips to hers, trying, hoping, that it’s enough, that somehow, through a single kiss she’ll be able to feel it: how much she means to me. How much I appreciate her. How much I love that she didn’t just want me. She wanted us. All three of us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“She’s disintegrated my armor with her existence, and now she has all of me.
Every single part.
I let her see me.
I let her love me.
And I let myself believe, just for a moment, I understood why.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“He punches the steering wheel. And then he breaks. The boy I love breaks. And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And I decide then and there that he may possibly be my favorite person in the entire world.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You never have to be afraid of me, Becca, I’ll never hurt you. And as long as I’m around, no one else will either.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I’ll always love you,” I tell her. “You’ll always belong to me, Becca.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I never thought I’d find someone like you. Someone who’d put up with me having a son and wanting to be part of both our lives. Why do you do it, Becca?” I ask, my heart pounding against my chest.
“Because, Josh. You and Tommy…” She places my hand over her heart. “…you own me in here.” And even as I feel her heart beat against my palm, I wonder if she knows that she just made mine stop.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Our raw imperfections make us real and make us human but they don't make us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“It's a hard emotion to explain— what it feels like to fake every single moment of your life. To breathe but to not exist. To smile but to not be happy. To nod and agree but to not really care.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“So here we are, lying side by side, hand in hand, listening to music on the middle of a basketball court with nothing but darkness surrounding us and I swear it, my world has never looked so bright. “Becca?”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
Jay McLean
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“A majority of people will often choose the familiar things instead of the unknown, even if they are making a choice that they know will harm them. People are afraid to take chances, to try or to fight. People pass countless opportunities in their lives just because they are scared to make a move or do something out of character. There were many times when I was faced with hard and risky decisions, but I picked the unknown if the familiar sounded too dangerous.”
― Veronika Gasparyan, quote from Mother at Seven: The Shocking True Story of an Armenian Girl's Stolen Childhood and Her Family's Unspeakable, Cruel Betrayal
“Sometimes suffering is what’s best for us, if only because it keeps us from sinning or tempting others to sin.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots
“A story helps folks face the world, even when it frightens ’em. And a lie does the opposite. It helps you hide.”
― Jonathan Auxier, quote from The Night Gardener
“The conversation swings from the brothers Bush to the war in Iraq to the emerging rights of Muslim women to postfeminism to current cinema—Mexican, American, European (Giorgio goes spasmodically mad over Bu-ñuel), and back to Mexican again—to the relative superiority of shrimp over any other kind of taco to the excellence of Ana’s paella, to Ana’s childhood, then to Jimena’s, to the changing role of motherhood in a postindustrial world, to sculpture, then painting, then poetry, then baseball, then Jimena’s inexplicable (to Pablo) fondness for American football (she’s a Dallas Cowboys fan) over real (to Pablo) fútbol, to his admittedly adolescent passion for the game, to the trials of adolescence itself and revelations over the loss of virginity and why we refer to it as a loss and now Óscar and Tomás, arms over each other’s shoulders, are chanting poetry and then Giorgio picks up a guitar and starts to play and this is the Juárez that Pablo loves, this is the city of his soul—the poetry, the passionate discussions (Ana makes her counterpoints jabbing her cigarette like a foil; Jimena’s words flow like a gentle wave across beach sand, washing away the words before; Giorgio trills a jazz saxophone while Pablo plays bass—they are a jazz combo of argument), the ideas flowing with the wine and beer, the lilting music in a black night, this is the gentle heartbeat of the Mexico that he adores, the laughter, the subtle perfume of desert flowers that grow in alleys alongside garbage, and now everyone is singing— México, está muy contento, Dando gracias a millares… —and this is his life—this is his city, these are his friends, his beloved friends, these people, and if this is all that there is or will be, it is enough for him, his world, his life, his city, his people, his sad beautiful Juárez… —empezaré de Durango, Torreón y Ciudad de”
― Don Winslow, quote from The Cartel
“Always be alert, never get hooked into anything negative. Many people go on studying negative things; their energies are simply wasted. There is no art of dying. Or, the art of living is the art of dying. Live!”
― Osho, quote from The Book of Wisdom
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No Easy Way OutBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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