Matthew Quick Quotes

It's like the P-38 is an old skeleton key I'm trying to fit into an old padlock and when I make that connection I'll hear a click and a door will open and I'll walk through and be saved. ~ Matthew Quick

Every day, the pretty boys ask how I'm doing and if anyone is messing around with me - as if anyone else would torture me. It's kind of weird and I think I liked it better when they were just mean to me all the time, as strange as that sounds. Their being nice is like eternally having a boa constrictor around your neck and pretending that it will never choke you to death. ~ Matthew Quick

I sat down on a chair and felt the cold on my face as I watched the snowflakes evaporate instantly, the moment they hit the warm, blue, chlorinated pool water - and I wondered if what I was witnessing could be a metaphor for our lives somehow, like we were all just little bits falling toward an inevitable dissolve, if that makes any sense at all. ~ Matthew Quick

I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day. ~ Matthew Quick

You cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly. ~ Matthew Quick

The voice that navigated was definitely that of a machine, and yet you could tell that the machine was a woman, which hurt my mind a little. How can machines have genders? The machine also had an American accent. How can machines have nationalities? This can't be a good idea, making machines talk like real people, can it? Giving machines humanoid identities? ~ Matthew Quick

Silence has always been my default mode - my best defense against the rest of the world. ~ Matthew Quick

It's okay to love people who aren't perfect. People who still have work to do on themselves. ~ Matthew Quick

You believe in the future now. It's easy for you, because you love the present. ~ Matthew Quick

Don't you ever feel like you want to quit doing something everyone else makes you feel like you're supposed to keep doing? Didn't you ever just simply want to ... stop? ~ Matthew Quick

Teachers have to believe. You have to care, and that takes a lot of work and effort. Teachers need people to give back once in a while too, if only a little. ~ Matthew Quick

All out friends had gone to the rugby house for a party, but we stayed in together for a night of pizza and wine on the couch of my town house. ~ Matthew Quick

She was acting like a little excited kid ... like she could still get really excited about something in public without trying to hide it. ~ Matthew Quick

My eyes burn. My face flushes. Suddenly I realize that for the past two months I have been completely delusional, that Nikki is never coming back and apart time is going to last forever.
Nikki.
Is.
Never.
Coming.
Back.
Never.
I want to hit Tiffany.
I want to pound her face with my knuckles until the bones in my hands crumble and Tiffany is completely unrecognizable, until she no longer has a face from which she can spew lies. ~ Matthew Quick

You may exist in
this world
but I exist too
and I will not yield ~ Matthew Quick

I'm sorry I couldn't be more than I was ~ Matthew Quick

I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn't been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like 'What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to get a real job?', and my parents thought I'd completely lost it. ~ Matthew Quick

The world will break your heart ten times till Sunday,that's guaranteed ~ Matthew Quick

A life lived well gets messy, ~ Matthew Quick

Not letting the world destroy you. That's a daily battle. ~ Matthew Quick

Most people lose the ability to see silver linings even though they are always there above us almost every day. ~ Matthew Quick

That's basically the mantra of Herr Silverman's teaching - think for yourself and do what's right for you, but let others do the same. ~ Matthew Quick

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

As I pedal, I start to get a bad feeling. I start to feel like I have everything all wrong, and that everyone else is right, and all my hopefulness is just childish bullcrap. ~ Matthew Quick

I can always look up at the cosmos and marvel, no matter what happens. And when I look up at it, I feel as though my problems are small. I don't know why, but it always makes me feel better. ~ Matthew Quick

When I go downstairs, my mom tells me I need to tuck in my shirt and wear a belt, "Why?" I ask, because I do not really care if I look respectable or not. I only want to get rid of Tiffany once and for all. ~ Matthew Quick

It's so quiet in my room that I wonder if this is what being dead sounds like. ~ Matthew Quick

You pick up goals and hopes along the way. Don't worry, there are more in your future. You'll ~ Matthew Quick

There is a price to pay for pushing beyond everyone else's answers, and what I'm finding out is that I'm more than willing to pay it. ~ Matthew Quick

The Nike swoop, the three Adidas stripes, the little Polo player on a horse, the Hollister seagull, the symbols of Philadelphia's professional sports teams, even our high school mascot that you athletes wear to battle other schools - some of you wear our Mustang to class even when there is no sporting event scheduled. These are your symbols, what you wear to prove that your identity matches the identity of others. Much like the Nazis had their swastika. ~ Matthew Quick

Different is good. But different is hard. ~ Matthew Quick

You don't always get the role you're going to play in life, but it's good to play whatever role you got the best way you can. ~ Matthew Quick

Sometimes you just have to pick a direction and make mistakes. Then you use what you learn from your failure to pick new, better directions so you can make more mistakes and keep learning. ~ Matthew Quick

But Cliff keeps pushing for the truth like therapists do, because they all have some sort of psychic ability that allows them to see through your lies, and therefore they know you will eventually tire of the talking game and will offer up the truth. ~ Matthew Quick

I think all it really takes for different people to get along is a common rooting interest and a few beers. ~ Matthew Quick

His use of the plural pronoun made me very suspicious. ~ Matthew Quick

But she [Nanette] knows how fickle this crew is. They move like a flying V of geese in the sky - all together. So once on of them changes course, the rest must follow. ~ Matthew Quick

I spread hope.
I'm a hope spreader. ~ Matthew Quick

I loved him like I loved walking through summer grass barefoot, like I loved a warm mug in my palms, like I loved driving on a long road as the sun sets in the distance. It was a good, safe, simple sort of friendship - well, at first, anyway. ~ Matthew Quick

So I wore the lesbian comments like a mask that kept everything I really loved private and safe and beyond the dirty grasp of the people who didn't know the real, true me and never would. ~ Matthew Quick

Far too often, people are woefully predictable. And I know many things. It's a curse. Here's something else I know: You are not doomed to be your parents. You can break the cycle. You can be whoever you want to be. But you will pay a price. You parents and everyone else will punish you if you choose to be you and not them. That's the price of your freedom. The cage is unlocked, but everyone is too scared to walk out because they whack you when you try, and they whack you hard. They want you to be scared, too. They want you to stay in the cage. But once you are a few steps beyond the trapdoor, they can't reach you anymore, so the whacking stops. That's another secret: They're too afraid to follow. They adore their own cages. ~ Matthew Quick

Portia Kane, Official Member of the Human Race! This card entitles you to ugliness and beauty, heartache and joy - the great highs and lows of existence - and everything in between. It also guarantees you the right to strive, to reach, to dream, and to become the person you know (deep down) you are meant to be. So make daring choices, work hard, enjoy the ride, and remember - you become exactly whomever you choose to be. ~ Matthew Quick

By now, ten trees must have been cut down just to document my mental health, which Nikki will hate hearing, as she is an avid environmentalist who gave me at least one tree in the rain forest every Christmas ~ Matthew Quick

He doesn't ever feel the war that goes on in my chest every single fucking day - the chemical explosions that light up my skull like the Fourth of July and the awful needs and impulses and ... ~ Matthew Quick

He was trying to make us think about how life is hard and people suffer in all sorts of ways without our adding to their suffering to satisfy our sense of vengeance, but I sort of don't think that the quote holds up in the real world, where literature and schooling and philosophy and morality don't exist, because Asher and Linda and so many other culpable people seem to be fine - functioning exceptionally well within the world even - while I'm under a disgusting bridge about to put a hole in my skull. ~ Matthew Quick

We can simultaneously be human and monster - that both of those possibilities are in all of us. ~ Matthew Quick

Of course I began to see Nikki, which was strange because I was staring into Danny's eyes, and Danny is a six-foot-three black man who looks nothing like my ex-wife. ~ Matthew Quick

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

The only way you could meet my crazy was by doing something crazy for yourself ~ Matthew Quick

How was I to know that being honest would make our relationship so much better? Honesty doesn't always produce such good results. And then I think about how I've never really been honest with my peers, either. I never really let them see the true, authentic Nanette O'Hare. Few people besides Alex and Oliver got to hang out with her. And maybe that was my big mistake. ~ Matthew Quick

I look up at the sky.
I see a cloud passing just under the sun.
The top is all electric white.
I remind myself.
Don't give up, I think. Not just yet. ~ Matthew Quick

The world is a hard place and can be hardest on the hopeful, ~ Matthew Quick

The bullies are always popular.
Why?
People love power. ~ Matthew Quick

But do we really think about it deeply or do we just ultimately do what we're supposed to do? What our parents want us to do? What society wants us to do? ~ Matthew Quick

People can be cruel,' he says with a sympathetic look that makes me trust him even more. And right then I realize that he is not writing down all my words in a file, which I really appreciate, let me tell you. ~ Matthew Quick

She never laughs or smiles or tells a joke. She reminds me of a robot caked in meat. ~ Matthew Quick

Although once when we were talking after class, Herr Silverman told me that when someone rises up and holds himself to a higher standard, even when doing so benefits others, average people resent it, mostly because they're not strong enough to do the same. ~ Matthew Quick

I have to admit that Emily is a cute kid, and I instantly understand why Ronnie has written me so many letters about his daughter-why he loves her so much. I start to think about having children with Nikki someday and I become so happy that I give little Emily a kiss on the forehead, as if she were Nikki's baby and I was her father. And then I kiss Emily's forehead again and again, until she giggles. ~ Matthew Quick

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

My tag line for 'Silver Linings' is this: It's about a man who thinks his life is a movie produced by God. ~ Matthew Quick

This wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be beautiful. What the fuck? ~ Matthew Quick

There are no guarantees when it comes to such treacherous things as friendship. It's a tricky business. ~ Matthew Quick

Someday an opportunity will come. Think about Harry Potter. His life is terrible, but then a letter arrives, he gets on a train, and everything is different for him afterward. Better. Magical."
"That's just a story."
"So are we- we're stories too. ~ Matthew Quick

People outside of mental institutions need to have good morals so that the world will continue to work without any major interruptions - and happy endings will flourish. ~ Matthew Quick

We really don't get to understand /why/ most of the time. It's true. ~ Matthew Quick

I still believe you fell into my life for a reason. ~ Matthew Quick

I need you, Pat Peoples; I need you so fucking bad. ~ Matthew Quick

Antigone - as you will see when you read the play - was a woman who wouldn't yield to men. She did what she thought was right. And I admire Antigone a great deal. But the play is largely about pride and what happens when people are stubborn - refuse to bend. It ends in tragedy, as tragedies often do. ~ Matthew Quick

And then one day you will look for you in the mirror and you'll no longer be able to identify yourself - you'll only see everyone else. You'll know that you did what they wanted you to do. You will have assimilated. And you will hate yourself for it, because it will be too late. ~ Matthew Quick

(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

They've never had to make any real decisions at all. Their lives are easy and unremarkable. They're not awake. ~ Matthew Quick

You can't live for someone else. At some point you just explode ... ~ Matthew Quick

Sometimes I actually hope that he did once feel empty and hopeless and helpless enough to slash his wrists to the bone, because if he felt that horrible and survived to be such a fantastic grown-up, then maybe there's hope for me. ~ Matthew Quick

You are you [Nanette O'Hare] - and that's okay, because this existence you're making your way through is your story and no one else's. ~ Matthew Quick

The world doesn't really care too much about what you do sometimes - as long as you let certain types carry on en masse without you. ~ Matthew Quick

You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life ~ Matthew Quick

I'm going to kill you later today," I say to that guy in the mirror, and he just smiles back at me like he can't wait. ~ Matthew Quick

Sometimes it's hard for me to hang on to the horse or pole. And I want to bite just about every fucking hand that extends toward me because I can no longer tell which are good and which are bad. Maybe like there in't good and bad anymore. ~ Matthew Quick

Do people actually do that
go back and thank their teachers years later, when they're no longer handicapped by youth and ignorance, when they figure out just how much their teachers actually did for them? ~ Matthew Quick

I can be a very valuable friend to you, but you do not want me as an enemy. ~ Matthew Quick

We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. He seemed to pity me, and I started to hate him, even though it is a cardinal sin to hate a priest, one of the deadliest, I do believe. ~ Matthew Quick

People enter our lives for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. ~ Matthew Quick

When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out. ~ Matthew Quick

In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on, and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer field with me - in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. ~ Matthew Quick

I haven't taught since 2004, but I taught high school English for seven years, primarily at a place called Haddonfield Memorial, which is in a very well-to-do-community in Southern New Jersey. ~ Matthew Quick

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat, For, though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous, Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand. - From Hamlet by Shakespeare ~ Matthew Quick

Irish ex-priests don't succumb to drunkenness, we just become more talkative on whiskey, ~ Matthew Quick

But his father didn't know
And his teachers didn't seem to care
Because they rewarded the ones who invented
Cruel names for the ones the teachers never
rewarded ~ Matthew Quick

Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you. ~ Matthew Quick

If he was able to make her feel even the slightest bit of guilt for being so oblivious - if he could get through all that makeup and high fashion. ~ Matthew Quick

We cry together- on the couch for different- reasons, but it helps. ~ Matthew Quick

You ever feel like you're sending out a light but no one sees it? ~ Matthew Quick

We never see any boats. But you man the light anyway
just in case. And WE got to see it
all these years. The great light. The beautiful sweeping beam! We were here to see it, and that was enough ... Weed your mind. And man the great light. Even when no one is looking. ~ Matthew Quick

Esther loses her virginity, hemorrhages during the process, and almost bleeds to death - like Catherine in A Farewell to Arms - and I do wonder why women are always hemorrhaging in American literature. ~ Matthew Quick

Kenny G is extremely talented and resourceful and a powerful force to be reckoned with ... Mr. G might not seem evil, but I fear him more than any other human being. ~ Matthew Quick

I thought about it and decided that I wasn't going to attempt to answer life's greater mysteries
especially given all I was dealing with presently
and so I figured it best to stick with the plan. ~ Matthew Quick

Why are you giving this to me?""well, for a lot of reasons. most of which i can't really explain properly. that's why people give presents, right? because they don't know how to express themselves in words, so you give gifts to symbolically explain your feelings. ~ Matthew Quick

I'd like to feel okay all the time
to have the ability to sit and function without feeling so much pressure, without feeling as though blood is going to spurt from my eyes and fingers and toes if I don't do something. ~ Matthew Quick

it's important to treasure your woman while you have her because if you don't, you can lose her pretty quickly ~ Matthew Quick

Is there anyone worth admiring in the world? Or does everyone let you down eventually? ~ Matthew Quick