“When something bad happens to us, something good happens - often to someone else. And that's The Good Luck of Right Now. We must believe it. We must. We must. We must.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“This is when I learned that nice people sometimes felt they had to pretend to be mean and awful.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“We don’t know anything. But we can choose how we respond to whatever comes our way. We have a choice always. Remember that!”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“...You cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“A friend is a present you give yourself.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Have you noticed that far too often the best people in the world lack power,”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“What is reality if it isn't how we feel about things?”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“The universe hiccups, and we poor fools try to figure out why.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Why didn't my father get to give Mom the fairy tale? Why do most people fail to give each other the fairy tale?”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“And what is reality, if it isn’t how we feel about things? What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts?”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“I remembered a line I read in the Dalai Lama’s book A Profound Mind. “It is important that we understand just how truly all-pervasive suffering is.” I remembered the Dalai Lama saying it is easy to feel sorry for an elderly beggar, but it is much harder to feel sorry for a young rich man. He also said that all “conditioned existence is characterized by pain.” And that all types of people are “enslaved” by “strong destructive emotions.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Perfect doesn't exist for people like us, Bartholomew. Passable. That's what I want. Just simply passable. If I could have a passable existence, I think I'd be very grateful.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Fly! There's a lot of sky out there for brave birds.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Father McNamee would have said Brother Andre had faith -- he just believed more than other people. And I wondered if faith were not a form of pretending.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Pray.” “For what?” I asked. “That our house will never be broken into again?” “No. What happens to things is not important. Pray that your heart will be able to endure whatever happens to you in the future—your heart must continue to believe that the events in this world are not the be-all and end-all but simply transient unimportant variables. Beyond the everyday ins and outs of our lives, there is a greater purpose—a reason. Perhaps we don’t yet see or understand the reason—maybe our human minds are incapable of understanding fully—yet it all leads us to something greater nonetheless.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“I admire you your willingness to offer kindness almost indiscriminately. But unfortunately, it takes a lot more than kindness to survive in this world." I understood what she meant, but I also understood that Mom's philosophy was a powerful weapon.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better, safer worlds you create for yourself.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“I thought of a line from the Dalai Lama’s book A Profound Mind: “‘We should work toward cherishing the welfare of others to the point where we are unable to bear the sight of their misery.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“It was cold, but we weren't about to make Max leave because we didn't know if he or any of us would ever make it back to Canada's capital city, let alone this very spot, and even if we did, somehow we knew it would never be the same as right then. There would be different variables, if we came back, a totally different equation made up of wildly different circumstances; it just couldn't be helped, because life was always evolving and changing, and therefore, no matter how much we'd like to, we would never, ever have that moment again--even if we tried with all our might to re-create it, going so far as wearing the exact clothes even, we would fail, because you cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“...and I kept thinking about the questions the border patrolman had asked. Are those types of questions able to define us as people? Measure our worth, our goodness, and whether or not we are safe visitors? Where are you going? What do you do for a living? Business or pleasure? Do the answers prove whether our lives matter and whether we're worthy of being admitted into Canada? If we're dangerous? What was the point of asking any questions whatsoever...”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“(I have to say that everything seems to be unraveling lately. Or maybe it seems as though I am a flower myself, opening up to the world for the first time. I don’t know why this is, and I’m not really in control of it either. Flowers do not think, Okay, it is now May, so I will reach up toward the sun and relax my fist of petals into an open hand. They do not think at all. Flowers just grow, and when it is time, they shoot colors out of their stems and become beautiful.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Have you ever really listened to birds chirping--really truly listened?
So pretty it makes your chest ache.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Nobody knows anything when they are in their midtwenties.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Going to the movies? Fuck that! You have to sit with fucking asshole strangers and you never know which one has a fucking cold or what fuck is going to bring a fucking crying baby.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“Why is it that the people who are very good at answering difficult questions never get asked difficult questions, while people like me are always being forced to do things that are seemingly impossible?”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“believed in The Good Luck of Right Now. Believing—or maybe even pretending—made you feel better about what had happened, regardless of what was true and what wasn’t. And what is reality, if it isn’t how we feel about things? What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts? And isn’t it true, statistically speaking—regardless of whether we believe in luck or not—that good and bad must happen”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“he didn’t say anything to the contrary or interrupt me in any way, which was nice. (Polite listening skills really are rare, don’t you think?)”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
“that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Good Luck of Right Now
Matthew Quick
Born place: Philadelphia, The United States
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“There had been times-he was almost certain-when he'd known unmitigated joy, but so faded were they to his recollection that he had begun to suspect the fictional conjuring of nostalgia. As with civilizations and their golden ages, so too with people: each individual ever longing for that golden past moment of true peace and wellness.
So often it was rooted in childhood, in a time before the strictures of enlightenment had afflicted the soul, when what had seemed simple unfolded its complexity like the petals of a poison flower, to waft its miasma of decay.”
― Steven Erikson, quote from The Bonehunters
“You in the back," said the principal. "Don't think you can hide. Tell me. What would you like to be?"
"Dangerous," said the hidden girl, without a second's hesitation.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Blue Eyes pulled his sword back and tried another lunge. I pushed the weapon toward the ground, but again he flicked his wrist. A line of fire blazed on my right arm. Wonderful. Matching cuts.
He paused with his sword held in midair. My blood stained the tip.
I glanced past him. Didn’t anyone hear the fight? Should I scream?
“Submit? You will have so many cuts on your arms and legs, you will faint from lack of blood.”
“No.”
― Maria V. Snyder, quote from Storm Glass
“It's hard to live a good life...It seems like the Devil don't ever let up.”
― Donald Ray Pollock, quote from The Devil All the Time
“The idea of how others see you becomes more important than the reality of you.”
― Michael J. Sullivan, quote from The Crown Conspiracy
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The Sword of SummerBookQuoters 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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