Miranda July · 205 pages
Rating: (29.3K votes)
“What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it's not true. Generally, people don't like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“i wondered if i would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself..”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“If there were a map of the solar system, but instead of stars it showed people and their degrees of separation, my star would be the one you had to travel the most light-years from to get to his. You would die getting to him.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“People tend to stick to their own size group because it's easier on the neck. Unless they are romantically involved, in which case the size difference is sexy. It means: I am willing to go the distance for you.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I walked down the hall and saw that [she] was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It's a slippery slope, and it's best just to sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you're not sure if you are one.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Don't wait to be sure. Move, move, move.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I looked at other couples and wondered how they could be so calm about it. They held hands as if they weren't even holding hands. When Steve and I held hands, I had to keep looking down to marvel at it. There was my hand, the same hand I've always had - oh, but look! What is it holding? It's holding Steve's hand! Who is Steve? My three-dimensional boyfriend. Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I would go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn't force her. I wouldn't have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don't know anything. Call me when you've cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I'll listen.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“They wordlessly excused each other for not loving each other as much as they had planned to. There were empty rooms in the house where they had meant to put their love, and they worked together to fill these rooms with midcentury modern furniture. ("Birthmark").”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“He pulled away, but his eyes held my eyes like hands.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“There was nothing in this world that was not a con, suddenly I understood this. Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost. ”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“When you can see the beauty of a tree, then you will know what love is.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“She never inquired, but she never recoiled, either. This is a quality that I look for in a person, not recoiling.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“It was a small thing, but it was a thing, and things have a way of either dying or growing, and it wasn’t dying.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“For a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I really did not feel okay about any of this, and there was really nothing I could do about any of it.”
― Miranda July, quote from No One Belongs Here More Than You
Miranda July
Born place: in Barre, Vermont, The United States
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