Tommy Wallach Quotes

You don't wanna go out of this world with regrets. If there's some-
thing you want to do, you do it. You take this life by the balls and you tell it that you existed.

Life isn't sugarcoated. Why should coffee be?

She believed photography to be the greatest of all art forms because it was simultaneously junk food and gourmet cuisine, because you could snap dozens of pictures in a couple of hours, then spend dozens of hours perfecting just a couple of them.

People don't like getting older, but they do like changing. Staying the same is a kind of death.

He was the kind of guy who had a unique facial expression dedicated to thinking.

Life would take everything from you eventually. So who would be so stupid to leave someone they loved by choice?

My mom told me once that she wouldn't be a kid again for a million bucks. She said things hurt more when you don't have any perspective on pain.

That's true.

But doesn't everyone want to be young and hot forever?

They only think they want it, Parker. But nobody really wants anything forever. Just for longer than they get it.

Today was just another shit day in a life that sometimes felt like a factory specializing in the construction of shit days.

The world is full of unknown mysteries and vague resolutions.

We spend all our lives standing up on a ledge like this, but we pretend not to notice.

This is the twenty-first century. The oceans are rising. Mad dictators have access to nuclear weapons. Corporatism and the dumbing down of the media have destroyed the very foundations of democracy. Anyone who isn't afraid is a moron." There

Fear swept in to fill the silence. Fear of disappearing, of the dark, of the unknown. Fear or being somewhere without this love to define him. 'Don't stop talking,' he tried to say.

Alana – still dressed as a pirate- chambers over the counter like that evil Japanese ghost in the Ring, knocking over the child-size popcorn of some little kid, who starts to cry. The pink-pigtailed girl knows something crazy is going on, but she doesn't yet understand it has anything to do with her. Not until Alana has grabbed Tyler by his black button-down shirt and pushed him hard into the Icee machine, which begins to stream cherry-red Icee onto the counter.

She'd prepared herself for any amount of awkwardness or anger, but no for a hug that was probably the longest she'd ever received from a boy, one of those hugs that made it clear how much the person hugging you was in need of a hug, or believed YOU to be in need of a hug.

She was miserable because she kept hoping things would change. If she could eradicate the hope, she could eradicate the sadness.

(the difference between coldness and coolness was, after all, simply a matter of degree).

The end of the world revealed the futility of all commemorative plaques.

She looked up toward the sky, toward the implacable sparkle of good old Ardor, and saw that the two of them - she and the asteroid - were caught up I a battle of wills. In that moment, she stopped being afraid of it, even dared it to come, because she knew thre was mo way it could crave death as much as she craved life.

Andy was speechless. He'd forgotten that there was actually another person in the room- someone with her own needs and desires and shit to freak out about. But it was funny, or better than funny, that sometimes two people could be feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time.

Peter put his arm around her waist and pulled her tight to his side. Eliza had already noticed that he did this whenever he was about to disagree wit her; it was yet another manifestation of his just-shy-of-ridiculous tenderness.

It occurred to Anita that hatred and dislike and even indifference were all luxuries, born of the mistaken belief that anything could last forever.

They said no man was an island, and Anita figured that was probably true. But women were; they had to be. And even if someone bothered to sail over and disembark, he'd soon discover that there was always a castle at the center of the island, surrounded by a deep moat, with a rickety drawbridge and archers manning the battlements and a big pot of oil posed above the gate, ready to boil alive anyone who dared to cross the threshold.

Then I'll just tell you that it doesn't matter whose fault it is. Blame is just a way to keep score, and adults don't play games like that.

She realized she was smiling so broadly and sincerely that it embarrassed her. But she couldn't make the smile go away. She was just glad no one could see inside her, because her heart suddenly felt so heavy,m only heavy in a good way. And then she noticed the knowing expression on Peter's face, and it seemed like maybe he WAS seeing inside her after all. She pushed his head away so that he couldn't look at her.

Why had he assumed time was some sort of infinite resource? Now the hourglass had busted open, and what he'd always assumed was just a bunch of sand turned out to be a million tiny diamonds.

Back on the beach, everyone was tearing off their costumes piece by piece. It was like some kind of crazy dream, the sight of all those people emerging from their disguises, shedding the fake muscles and plastic armor, the fairy wings and angel wings, and devils horns, all of it piled up like a mass grave for make-believe.

Do you think it is better to fail at something worthwhile, or succeed at something meaningless

Anita felt like she finally understood why love was symbolized by the grotesque pumping organ, always threatening to clog, or break, or attack. Because the heart was the body's engine, and love was an act of the body. Your mind could tell you who to hate or respect or envy, but only your body--your nostrils and your mouth and the wide, blank canvas of your skin--could tell you who to love.

There's a word in Portuguese that my dad wrote about in one of his books: saudade.
It's the sadness you feel for something that isn't gone yet, but will be. The sadness of lost causes. The sadness of being alive.

He was one of those guys who got mystical and hazy when he was high, and his conversation with the pizza place was one for the ages: "Do we want pepperoni? Oh, man, I don't even know. Hold on. Guys, do we want pepperoni? No, we don't pepperoni, even though I have no idea why, because pepperoni is delicious. Actually, I'm going to ask one more time. Guys, do we really not want pepperoni? No? Man, that's CRAZY

And there in the darkness of the hotel room, scarcely more than twenty-four hours before the maybe end of the world, the three of them managed to laugh together. It turned out that no amount of terror could stop the great human need to connect. Or maybe, Anita thought, terror was actually at the heart of that need. After all, every life ended in an apocalypse, in one way or another.

Beauty always made a target of its possessor. Every other human quality was hidden easily enough – intelligence, talent, selfishness, even madness – but beauty would not be concealed.

Young people feel things so deeply, don't they?' she said quietly, almost to herself. 'Everything's happening for the first time.

Karass: A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident

Was life too short? Of course- there was never enough time to do all the things you wanted to do. And of course not- if it were any longer, you'd appreciate it even less than you already did.

Was it better to live primarily for the good of yourself, or for the good of others? For the good of yourself, of course- it was madness to take responsibility for other people's happiness. And for others, of course- selfishness was just another way to isolate yourself, when everyone knew that true happiness was all about friendship and love.

That was the problem with understanding someone too well – you couldn't help but forgive them, no matter what they did.

Pretty girls never struggled to find someone to talk to, as long as they didn't need to say anything important.

He thought he would choke to death on it, on the harsh truth he'd been trying to ignore his entire life: that no matter how bad he wanted it or how he hard he tried to get it, he would never be worthy of anyone's love.

This may come as a shock for you, but some of us actually care about stuff.

As a little kid, Peter had figured that once you reached a certain age, somebody just handed you all the knowledge you'd need in order to be an adult. But it turned out that wasn't how it worked.

She didn't look back, but she did break her stride for half a second, which was really the most you could hope for with a girl like that.

I'm nobody. I'm just a tiny little character in the big book of your life. And you're right. People do die. All of them. Bar none. So what does it even mean? I call someone crazy because not everybody is crazy. I call someone brilliant because not everyone is brilliant. But everybody dies. Squirrels die. Tress die. Skin cells die and your inner organs die and the person you were yesterday's dead too. So what does it mean to die? Not much.