“Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“Because, really, what was worse than lying wide-awake in the dark, watching your life drip away, one irreplaceable minute after another?”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“I'm halfway through my life, and as far as I can tell, the real lesson of the past isn't that I made some mistakes, it's that I didn't make nearly enough of them. I doubt I'll be lying on my deathbed in forty or fifty years, congratulating myself on the fact that I never had sex in an airplane with a handsome Italian businessman, or patting myself on the back for all those years of involuntary celibacy I endured after my divorce. If recent experience is any guide, I'll probably be lying in that hospital bed with my body full of tubes, sneaking glances at the handsome young doctor, wishing that I hadn't been such a coward. Wishing I'd taken more risks, made more mistakes, and accumulated more regrets. Just wishing I'd lived when I had the chance.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“Abstinence is perfectly reasonable in theory," Gregory said, "It just doesn't work in practice. It's like dieting. You can go a day or two, maybe even a week. But eventually that pizza just smells too good.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“On the first day of Human Sexuality, Ruth Ramsey wore a short lime green skirt, a clingy black top, and strappy high-heeled sandals, the kind of attention-getting outfit she normally wouldn't have worn on a date---not that she was going on a lot of dates these days---let alone to work. ”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“They were good listeners, worldly yet easily shocked, hungry for details, curious and nonjudgmental at the same time, always happy to give advice, but only if it was requested.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
“Randall kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as she approached. A stranger might have mistaken him for a dedicated Information Sciences professional getting an early start on some important research, but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures…”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from The Abstinence Teacher
Tom Perrotta
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
Born date August 13, 1961
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“We have the divinity of our great misery. And our solitude, with its toilsome ideas, tears and laughter, is fatally divine. However wrong we may go in the dark and the useless work of our hearts working incessantly, and whatever our ignorance left to itself, and whatever the wounds that other human beings are, we ought to study ourselves with a sort of devotion. It is this sentiment that lights our foreheads, uplifts our souls, adorns our pride, and, in spite of everything, will console us when we shall become accustomed to holding, each at his own poor task, the whole place that God used to occupy. The truth itself gives an effective, practical, and, so to speak, religious caress to the suppliant in whom the heavens spread.
.....
"I have such respect for the actual truth that there are moments when I do not dare to call things by their name," the poet ended.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Hell
“Wouldn’t you rather play chess, Ma’am?....It’s less destructive of clothes.”
― Rowena Cherry, quote from Knight's Fork
“He walked until his heart was as dreary as the sky, until some sort of truth came to him.”
― Eloisa James, quote from An Affair Before Christmas
“The harder you fight a decentralized opponent, the stronger it gets. The labels had the power to annihilate Napster and destroy Kazaa. But waging that battle was possibly the worst strategic move the labels made. It started a chain reaction that now threatens the entire industry. As the labels go after the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, little programs like eMule start popping up.
Now, it's not that MGM and the other labels are stupid, nor are they alone. It's just that MGM hasn't stopped to fully understand this new force. What we've seen with the P2P companies is just the tip of the iceberg.”
― Ori Brafman, quote from The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
“and he, Hugh Person....began to undress her in the motels of his mind”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from Transparent Things
Unmade
Did I Mention I Love...
Strange the Dreamer
A Song for Arbonne
Betsy and JoeBookQuoters 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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