Quotes from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“A man who works all day, every day and loves each apple he uncrates, who cherishes each can of soup - a man like that surely puts us all to shame.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“In a cement park across the street is this giant sculpture. It is a giant umbrella frame lying on its side. It's green. Stand under it, during a rainstorm, you'll still get wet - that's why it's art.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I have seen God and he is this girl.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“She loves me-she just doesn't know it yet.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“No 'buts', Gilbert. You just make sense to me. It's nothing more special than that.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“He sees me through the glass. We both nod like we give a small shit about each other.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“There is nothing more depressing than toast that no one eats.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I never want to regret. 'Regret' is the ugliest word.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“You can tell the idyllic nature of a family by the upkeep of its picnic table. Ours is its own indictment. We are splintering and peeling. We rot.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I devised a test.
I turned off the TV and instantly the snoring stopped. She began to move. When I felt her eyes about to open, I turned the TV back on and back to sleep she went. Then I'd turn it off and on - sometimes for millisecond - and she never failed me. Each time it was off, she's move and mutter - each time it was on, she'd sleep.
By the time the headlights from Amy's Nova turned into our driveway, my suspicion had been confirmed. My mother has a more intimate, connected relationship with this television than she has ever had with me.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I was seven when he hung himself, and I don't remember all that much, and anything I did remember, I've managed to forget.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“He loves to hide, but only if you take the time to find him. And while I suspect that's true for most people, only a retard or a kid would admit it.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“How can you kill a man who'd already been dead for years?”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“smiles and friendly nods are like fabric softeners for the face.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“Wait a minute, I'm thinking, was this another one of those conversations where what is meant and what is being said are not the same thing?”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“These eggs are broken. Cracked."
"Yes, ma'am. That happens sometimes."
"Does it?"
"Yes, it's the unfortunate part of being an egg.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“My brother's costume is the exception. He looks like an American. In fact, he behaves like one. When he tried to pick up the first kid he knocked down, he smashed into several others, it snowballed, chaos ensued. My brother very much resembled America today in pretty much all things.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I'm told women scream when they give birth because of the intense pain. And I think about how easily life can just slide away, like thawing ice. And how it's only the living that scream.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“The more Christian you are in this town, the more makeup you wear. I've always thought that it's because if you were to die suddenly, you'd look better for God.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“She doesn't acknowledge Tucker, and there's no thank you for the cigarettes. She says a person shows their gratitude by action, not by words. So I guess that means she thanks me by smoking every cigarette in every pack.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I stared at her - unable to accept that at one time I was growing inside her. I was once just a couple of cells. My father and my mother were naked something had to be satisfactory about it, because he came inside her and she got pregnant. She, like me, was once a baby in her mother's stomach and so on and so forth and so it goes. So it goes.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“Gilbert?"
Some days I hate all those who know my name.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“A bad dream. You were having a bad dream." "Oh", I say. "Is that what I'm having?”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“It's supposed to go bing-bing or bong-bong or ding-ding when tires go over it. The one at Dave's stopped working several years ago, and he won't have it fixed because he feels as I do - that none of us need to be reminded we exist.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I could go at any time now.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“God forgives you your sins."
I say right back, "And I forgive him his.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“I left this conversation hours ago, but somehow my mouth is still moving, words are still forming, and none have seemed to offend. Amazing, the mind. My mind, I mean. Not hers.”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

“Who's calling?"
"Don't insult me like that," the voice says.
I stop. Was I just insulting?”
― Peter Hedges, quote from What's Eating Gilbert Grape

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Popular quotes

“But where Lincoln’s absent hand was felt most keenly was in race relations. Black codes were passed in state after state across the South—as restrictive as the antebellum laws governing free blacks (Richmond’s old laws had even regulated the carrying of canes). These codes propounded segregation, banned intermarriage, provided for special punishments for blacks, and, in one state, Mississippi, also prevented the ownership of land. Not even a congressional civil rights bill, passed over Johnson’s veto, could undo them. For their part, the Northern states were little better. During Reconstruction, employing a deadly brew of poll taxes, literacy requirements, and property qualifications, they abridged the right to vote more extensively than did their Southern counterparts.”
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“Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?” I asked as I peeled. Rose sighed and it wasn’t in sadness; it was a frustrated sigh. Frustrated with me? “No.” “Do you want to?” “Violet, can you get me an oven dish, please?” Rose asked, completely ignoring my question. That’s a no then. I felt so sorry for her. He had really screwed with her mind. Rose shoved the chicken in the oven dish and put it in the oven. She was pretending she hadn’t heard me, but I knew she would be thinking about it. How could she not? Did she know she was brainwashed? I’d”
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