David Arnold Quotes

I think about how quickly things have changed for me. But that's the personality of change, isn't it? When it's slow, it's called growth; when it's fast, it's change. And God, how things change: some things, nothings, anythings, everything… all the things change.

However, if you're cursed as I am with a love of storytelling and adventures in galaxies far, far away, and mythical creatures from fictional lands who are more real to you than actual people with blood and bones---which is to say, people who exist---well, let me be the first to pass on my condolences.
Because life is rarely what you imagined it would be.

Everything sounds better on vinyl. It's not a trend. It's a fact. I

Arlene was one of a kind, a true friend when I needed one, a grande dame from the old school. She was the sweetest of old ladies, and I will miss her dearly. All of those things are true, but the words I choose are far more profound.
"She smelled like cookies," I whisper through tears.

I lowered my voice, because as I'd learned some time ago, a whisper was louder than a scream

I ask, "You ever hear that a person has to go through fire to become who they're meant to be?"
Mendes sips her coffee, nods. "Sure."
"I've always wanted to be strong, Miss Mendes, I just wish there wasn't so much fire.

Sometimes you walk into a room one person, and when you come out the other side, you're someone else altogether.

And in the night sky, the soaring sopranos fly out over the city, guarding it with song, catching the souls of those rare, lovely heart-thinkers.

You and Victor are my North, South, East, and West. You are my Due Everywhere.

Before you now it, you're in high school, wondering if you're the only one who actually read Brave New World, rather than it's summary on Wikipedia. Or you're sitting in the cafeteria, pondering the complexities of the latest Christopher Nolan film while the nearest table of cheerleaders discusses whatever reality TV show is popular that week, then argues over who gives the most efficient blow job. Surely, the real world would be different. But I'm beginning to wonder if the whole damn planet hasn't been Wikipedia'd

I have this theory about teachers, and what separates the good ones from the bad: it's not that good teachers don't think about quitting; it's that they never look like they've already quit.

Sometimes being with gets overlooked I think.

They understood that lasting pain could only be dealt at the root.

a thing's not a thing until you say it out loud

I often thought the most unfair thing about having Moebius wasn't Moebius at all, but other people's inability to define me by anything else.

I swear the older I get, the more I value bad examples over good ones. It's a good thing too, because most people are egotistical, neurotic, self-absorbed peons, insistent on wearing near-sighted glasses in a far-sighted world. And it's this exact sort of myopic ignorance that has led to my groundbreaking new theory. I call it Mim's Theorem of Monkey See Monkey Don't, and what it boils down to is this: it is my belief that there are some people whose sole purpose of existence is to show the rest of how not to act.

I stare at the many factions of Bundle, and I wonder at the injustice of the world: Vic's outsides can't reflect his insides, as much as I want them to. Bundel's outsides can't help but reflect his insides, as much as I don't want them to.

I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am empty, cleaned the fuck out. All that's left is a fierce hunger for flight.

Help is help to anyone, Mary. Even if they don't know they're asking for it." I said that made a whole lot of sense, because it did. And it still does. Here's the thing, Iz: my mom needs help right now. And I know it, even if she doesn't.

It's okay." I say again. Because if I keep saying it, maybe it will be true. It's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay.

People talk about coincidence like it's some big thing. But it's not. We bump into one another all the time. Mostly I think people are just too blind to notice.

Beck's smile is intense and sincere, a smile with, not a smile at. Mom used to say you could tell a lot by the way a person treats the innocent, and Walt is nothing if not innocence personified.

We are all part of the same story, each of us different chapters. We may not have the power to choose setting or plot, but we can choose what kind of character we want to be.

Because this is my life, the only one I get. And if it's a choice between a life Albilitoled, or a life full of Life... well, that's not really a choice at all.

Don't look at the colors that are there, V. Look at the colors that aren't.

She never said so out loud, but some things speak loud enough on their own.

Our past tenses last way longer than our present ones.

Home is hard. Harder than Reasons. It's more a storage unit for your life and its collections. It's more than an address, or even the house you grew up in. People say home is where the heart is, but I think maybe home is the heart. Not a place or a time, but an organ, pumping life into my life. There may be more mosquitos and stepmothers than I imagined, but it's still my heart. My home.

The longer you hold onto an apology, the harder it is to give.

As simple as it sounds, I think understanding who you are - and who you are not - is not the most important thing of all Important Things.

Why are my medical mysteries Reasons? I'm glad you asked. I've developed a theory I like to call the Pain Principle. The gist of it is this: pain makes people who they are.

A pall fell over the room. A black shroud of disease and deathbeds and all the worst things from all the worst places. This mutant world, a tragic portmanteau, the unnatural marriage of two roots as different as could be. 'And do you, Ability take Vitriol to be your lawfully wedded suffix?' I wanted to scream objections to the unholy matrimony, but nothing came out. My mouth was clammy and dry, full of sand. Dr. Wilson smiled on, rambling about the benefits of Abilitol while my father nodded like a toy bobblehead immune to the deepening shadow in the room.

As they spoke, I caught my mother's eye. I could tell by her face that she felt the deepening shadow too.

Neither of us smiled.
Neither of us spoke.
We felt the shadow together.

I remember like it was yesterday. I remember because it was the last time we held hands

Peer pressure is one thing, but when your dad's the pusher, it's something else entirely.

I have limited experience, but I know this: moments of connection with another human being are patently rare. But rarer still are those who can recognize such a connection when they see one.

My heart was so full, I thought it might explode into the ether, creating some bizarre new solar system whose inhabitants ate only love, drank only hope, and breathed only joy. What a substantial galaxy that would be.

A minute, an hour, a lifetime-- there is no time, there are no things. I have no more Things. I have only scraping metal, creaming voices, and death

Look at you," I whisper, smiling, crying. "Lovely.

I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.

He wraps an arm around me, and I swear we were once a single unit, a supercontinent divided millions of years ago - like my fifth grade science project - now reunited into some kaleidoscopic New Pangea. "I'm Madagascar," I say, sleepily. "You're what?" "I'm Madagascar. And you're Africa." He squeezes my shoulder, and - I think he gets it. I bet he does.

You know–I think my best course of action is to just let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.

I smile at Beck, a wide-eyed, can-you-believe-the-awesomeness-that-is-Walt sort of smile. He's wearing the same one. "I think we'll all remember the rendezvouski.

I swear, the longer I live, the less things make sense.

You ever have the feeling you lost something important, only to discover it was never there to begin with?

The thing about uniquely pretty girls is that their prettiness cares nothing for time or place. It cannot be rescheduled or relocated. They are pretty wherever they go, whenever they get there. It can be quite distracting.

It's just the two of us, cursed to face one another amid the ravenous elements of this bus station for all of forever.

Remember that, Iz. Be a kid of honesty. Wave it like a banner for all to see. Also, while I'm thinking about it - be a kid who loves surprises. Squeal with delight over puppies and cupcakes and birthday parties. Be curious, but content. Be loyal, but independent. Be kind. To everyone. Treat every day like you're making waffles. Don't settle for the first guy (or girl) unless he's the right guy (or girl). Live your effing life. Do so with gusto, because my God, there's nothing sorrier than a gusto-less existence. Know yourself. Love yourself. Be a good friend. Be a kid of hope and substance. Be a kid of appetite, Iz. You know what I mean, don't you? (Of course you do. You're a Malone.) Okay, that's all for now. Catch you on the flip side.
Blimey, get ready.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Your Big Sister

I see a million miles of life, a million lives in one, a million headaches, heartaches, brainaches, a million ingredients in her eyes

Pain makes people who they are.

And behind the good doctor, his Wall of Hubris: I counted seven framed degrees, hung with care and pride and more than a little jackassedness. Oh-ho, you don't believe I'm important, eh? Well then, how do you explain these?!?!?!

Scroll, scroll, scroll, play - now, to disappear completely into an entirely other world.
In that world: every faction left me alone.
In that world: I was not one seven-billionth of the planet's population.
In that world: I was one-fourth of the planet's population: it was Dad, the sopranos, and me.
In that world: we soared through the sky and clouds, above it all, not a care in the world, the most miraculous of gaggles, catching the soul of those rare, lovely heart-thinkers.
In that world: my wing was mended.

Every great character, Iz, be it on page or screen, is multidimensional. The good guys aren't all good, the bad guys aren't all bad, and any character wholly one or the other shouldn't exist at all. Remember this when I describe the antics that follow, for though I am not a villain, I am not immune to villainy.

But that's the personality of change, isn't it? When it's slow, it's called growth; when it's fast, it's change.

Have a vision, unclouded by fear.

Life, it seems, delivers the best punch lines only after we've forgotten we were part of a joke.

Yes, Mom but how does the music get from that needle" - I pointed my chubby little finger to the record player -"to my heart." My earliest memories of music had nothing to do with listening, and everything in the world to do with feeling. - Mim, Mosquitoland

Like a Siren, it tempts me with whispered promises of the ever-elusive Normal Life.

Exactly why I don't have a boyfriend," I whisper, turning to the window. Because you've referenced The Lord of the Rings twice before lunch, or because you're talking to yourself? I have to admit, I've got me there.

Mom and Dad had gathered their love like kindling, burned it together. And now that love is being scattered all over the place.

... it occurs to me how often laughter accompanies tears

A real apology cost something, because you had to stand there like an idiot and say it out loud for the world to hear - I'M SORRY. And the world, as always, would respond with a resounding, 'Yes. Yes, you are.

...the people arrogant enough to use the words 'I understand' are the ones who can't possibly understand.

Have a vision, Mary, unclouded by fear.

And suddenly, my symphony of travel crescendos, achieving its rumbling, mighty End

Do so with gusto, because my God, there's nothing sorrier than a gusto-less existence.

Sinking into fiction: the if-only of if-onlys.

You spend you life roaming the hillsides, scouring the four corners of the earth, searching desperately for just one persons to fucking get you. And I'm thinking, if you can find that, you've found home.

I'm indifferent, actually. I don't feel strongly one way or the other, which is like a lost art. It's like, if you don't love something or hate something, your opinion doesn't count. But not everything boils down to the best and the worst. Not everything fucking rules or fucking sucks, some things are just a little okay, or a little not okay, and that's that.

..you should write. It's better than succumbing to the madness of the world... And cheaper than pills

We are, each of us, hopeless hopers.

... anything to avoid the uncomfortable nearness of strangers

Till we're old-new.

It was cold out, the kind you could see, where your breath blossomed like a floating lotus in front of your face. It was the kind of cold where you couldn't tell if it was cloudy, or if the whole sky was just the color of clouds.

Don't underestimate the value of friends.

Russ remarked how hot it had been. I agreed it had been very hot. He said, 'Aren't you from the Congo?' I said, 'Well, I am an American citizen now, but yes - I was born in the Republic of the Congo. Why do you ask?' Russ said, 'Oh, nothing, I just figured you would be used to the heat, having lived in the jungle.' I looked Russ in his eyes, asked him, 'Are you from New Jersey?' 'Yes,' said Russ, 'born and raised.' I nodded. 'So I assume you strip down to your underwear and make out with very tan girls in hot tubs.' Russ raised an eyebrow and smiled. 'No,' he said, 'why would you think that?' I said, 'I have seen the television show Jersey Shore, so I am educated in the way all people from New Jersey live.

Closing his eyes again, Beck repositions his head on the back of his seat, and in one sure movement, reaches over and grabs my hand. Even with his eyes closed, he knew where to find me. I want to cry for a thousand reasons, laugh for a thousand others; this is my anomalous balance, the place where Beck and I can let the ridiculousness of our collective sentences marinate, and other things, too. It's a singular moment of clarity between two people, and rare or not, I'm not about to let go.
I'm done roaming hillsides.
I've scoured the corners of the earth.
And I've found my people.
God, I'm almost jealous of myself.
Holding Beck's hand in my lap, I find a courage I never knew I had and drop my head on his shoulder.

That's the thing about life - you don't know how long you have until you're dead, and by then, you don't know much of anything at all.

My Reasons may be hard, but my Objectives are quite simple.

They lived and laughed and they saw that it was good.

Life can be a real son of a bitch sometimes, bringing things back around long after you've said good-bye.

Be a kid of honesty. Wave it like a banner for all to see.. Be a kid who loves surprises... Be curious, but content. Be loyal, but independent. Be kind. To everyone. Treat every day like you're making waffles... Live your effing life. Do it with gusto... Know yourself. Love yourself. Be a good friend. Be a kid of hope and substance. Be a kid of appetite

But there's quality behind Dustin's eyes when he talks, a dimness, like the slow fade of a dying flashlight. Like someone forgot to replace the batteries in Dustin's face. This kind of emptiness can only be filled with heartache and struggle and I-don't-know-what...the enormity of things. The shit-stink of life. And neither the enormity nor the shit-stink can be found in a pancake breakfast. Pain is what matters.

What if … what if … what if … I play the What If? game all the time. But it's rigged, is the thing. Impossible to win. Asking What If? can only lead to Maybe Things Could Have Been Different, via Was It My Fault?

In the background Bowie sings of lawmen and cavemen, sailors fighting in dance halls, and I wish he were here now, in this kitchen with me, and I would hold his hand and together we would talk of life - on Mars, or otherwise.