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.

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.

I have seen God and he is this girl.

She loves me-she just doesn't know it yet.

No 'buts', Gilbert. You just make sense to me. It's nothing more special than that.

He sees me through the glass. We both nod like we give a small shit about each other.

There is nothing more depressing than toast that no one eats.

I never want to regret. 'Regret' is the ugliest word.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How can you kill a man who'd already been dead for years?

smiles and friendly nods are like fabric softeners for the face.

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?

These eggs are broken. Cracked." "Yes, ma'am. That happens sometimes." "Does it?" "Yes, it's the unfortunate part of being an egg.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gilbert?" Some days I hate all those who know my name.

A bad dream. You were having a bad dream." "Oh", I say. "Is that what I'm having?

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.

God forgives you your sins." I say right back, "And I forgive him his.

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.

Who's calling?" "Don't insult me like that," the voice says. I stop. Was I just insulting?