Oliver Tate Quotes

I don't know if I've come of age, but I'm certainly older now. I feel shrunken, as if there's a tiny ancient Oliver Tate inside me operating the levers of a life-size Oliver-shaped shell. A shell on which a decrepit picture show replays the same handful of images. Every night I come to the same place and wait till the sky catches up with my mood. The pattern is set. This is, no doubt, the end. ~ Joe Dunthorne

Jordana is in the umpire's highchair.
I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front of her, in the service box.
Her legs are crossed.
I wait for her to speak.
'I have two special skills,' she says.
She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It's my pamphlet.
'Blackmail,' she says.
She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.
'And pyromania.'
I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.
'Right,' I say.
'I'm going to blackmail you, Ol.'
I feel powerless. She is in a throne.
'Okay,' I say. ~ Joe Dunthorne

When I am very sad, I tend towards symbolism. ~ Joe Dunthorne

Exercise II.
Write a diary, imagining that you are trying to make an old person jealous. I have written an example to get you started:
Dear Diary,
I spent the morning admiring my skin elasticity.
God alive, I feel supple. ~ Joe Dunthorne

Old people only say that life happens quickly to make themselves feel better. The truth is that it all happens in tiny increments like now now now now now now and it only takes twenty to thirty consecutive nows to realize that you're aimed straight at a bench in Singleton Park. Fair play though, if I was old and had forgotten to do something worthwhile with my life, I would spend those final few years on a bench in the botanical gardens, convincing myself that time is so quick that even plants – who have no responsibilities whatsoever – hardly get a chance to do anything decent with their lives except, perhaps, produce one or two red or yellow flowers and, with a bit of luck and insects, reproduce. If the old man manages to get the words father and husband on his bench plaque then he thinks he can be reasonably proud of himself. ~ Joe Dunthorne

Most people think of themselves as individuals, that there's no one on the planet like them. This thought motivates them to get out of bed, eat food and walk around like nothing's wrong. My name is Oliver Tate. ~ Joe Dunthorne

But maybe this is what Hannah has always wanted: a man who will deny her. A man of her own who isn't hers. Isn't it the real reason she broke up with Mike--not because he moved to North Carolina for law school (he wanted her to go with him, and she said no) but because he adored her? If she asked him to get out of bed and bring her a glass of water, he did. If she was in a bad mood, he tried to soothe her. It didn't bother him if she cried, or if she didn't wash her hair or shave her legs or have anything interesting to say. He forgave it all, he always thought she was beautiful, he always wanted to be around her. It became so boring! She'd been raised, after all, not to be accommodated but to accommodate, and if she was his world, then his world was small, he was easily satisfied. After a while, when he parted her lips with his tongue, she'd think, Thrash, thrash, here we go. She wanted to feel like she was striving cleanly forward, walking into a bracing wind and learning from her mistakes, and she felt instead like she was sitting in a deep, squishy sofa, eating Cheetos, in an overheated room. With Oliver, there is always contrast to shape their days, tension to keep them on their toes: You are far form me, you are close to me. We are fighting, we are getting along. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Most Nazis, KKK members, MAGA minions, and other deplorable racists don't even know they're racists, because they don't know that the malicious lies they believe about other races aren't actually true. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

You fucking put those dick suckers anywhere near my woman again, and you'll be tasting your own arsehole, you got that?" Oliver snarled. "Now, fucking take your fruity arse behind the bar, and get me a fucking beer. ~ Kelli Jean

Anger begins with madness and ends with regret ~ Susie Tate

Hetty was awakened from a doze in a chair by the sound of a door opening. She was about to make herself known to whoever had entered the library when someone else entered, too, and she heard Minerva say, "Well? What do you think? Am I right about Oliver and Miss Butterfield?"
Shrinking into the chair, she prayed she wouldn't be noticed in the corner.
"It certainly looks that way." It was Jarret's voice. "He does seem to have genuine feelings for her. I've never witnessed him act like that over a woman. You should have seen him-ready to strike me when I suggested going after her myself."
"What a brilliant touch!" Minerva cried. "I told you he liked her. And I'll hazard a guess that she likes him, too. I went up to her room after they got back, and she blushed furiously when I asked if Oliver had behaved himself."
"That's the problem. Liking her is one thing, but whether he'll act on the attraction honorably is another matter entirely. Oliver isn't used to being around a woman he's not allowed to…er…"
"Take to bed."
Hetty blinked.
"My God, Minerva, don't say things like that! You're not supposed to know about such matters."
"Pish posh. I could hardly grow up with a rogue for a father and three rogue brothers without hearing a few things."
Hetty had to chomp on the inside of her cheek to stifle her laugh.
"Well, at least pretend you don't know, will you?" Jarret grumbled. "One day you'll say something like that in public and give ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Love and desire enjoy a symbiotic relationship, meaning that one cannot exist without the other. Desire is an enemy to contentment; desire is illness, a feverish brain. Who can be considered healthy who wants? The very word want suggests a lack, an impoverishment, and that is what desire is: an impoverishment of the brain, a flaw, a mistake. ~ Lauren Oliver

I think being an outsider in general always helps you in comedy. I think it helps to have an outsider's eye. And so I have an outsider's voice. You know, as soon as I start talking, I don't belong here. And I think that helps in a way. ~ John Oliver

My drummer, Gene Lake, is Oliver Lake's son. So I certainly have wide tastes, in not only what I listen to, but what I play as well. ~ David Sanborn

You can't tell me what to feel ~ Lauren Oliver

It is mere childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their own. The world is a whole generation older and wiser than when the father was of his son's age. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Schemes and plans for making things better fuel our dissatisfaction with the only place where happiness can ever be found - the present. ~ Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

life is real,
and pain is real,
but death is an imposter, ~ Mary Oliver

I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them. ~ Sharon Tate

The American people need to tell their member of Congress that we need a strong defense to protect us and to prevent wars. We can't get away with simply leading from behind and gutting our defenses. ~ Oliver North

Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

For nothing burns with such amazing speed, As the dry sticks of a religious creed. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

They looked like butterflies, except that they had the long, pointed beaks of hummingbirds, and they seemed to be made out of darkness and air. ~ Lauren Oliver

Vegetarians are hotter then meat eaters. ~ Oliver Sykes

Maybe, the hope said. Maybe. ~ Lauren Oliver

An eternity of chocolate fountains and perfect love and guys who always call when they say they will and banana sundaes that actually help you burn calories. ~ Lauren Oliver

Raquel Welch is someone I can also live without. We've got some love scenes together and I am dreading them! ~ Oliver Reed

The days of my youth can be described as my innocence hitting every obstacle along the way while plummeting into the abyss. ~ Oliver Oyanadel

CHAPTER XII IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF, THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS ~ Charles Dickens

Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Because I am terrified by what I want: for him, and worst of all, from him.
Because I do want. I'm not even sure what, exactly, but the want is there, just like the hate and anger were there before. But this is not a tower. It is an endless, tunneling pit; it drives deep, and opens a hole inside me. ~ Lauren Oliver

It sounded like the world was ending.
But it wasn't. ~ Lauren Oliver

The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, fore ever, on my best affections. Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them.
As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwords: Oliver sat quite still. ~ Charles Dickens

If a girl wants to sell her body, so be it. None of my business. Don't athletes sell their bodies, too? People can do behind closed doors whatever they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

Excerpted From Chapter 18
The most famous sign in the world was only a few hundred yards above me, and the sight of it stopped me in my tracks. The light bulbs surrounding the letters must have been controlled by a timer of some kind because they were off now. But what shocked me was the scale. I was used to seeing the sign from a distance. From this perspective there was no sense of the word HOLLYWOODLAND. All I saw were gigantic letters looming dimly above me in the moonlight like ancient monoliths erected in tribute to the gods of some long-extinct tribe.
A primal feeling of foreboding prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. I could imagine the traveler of an earlier age coming across Stonehenge in the dark and experiencing a similar sensation. ~ H.P. Oliver

Which one are you?" I whispered.
"What?" he asked.
"Are you the good guy, the sweet guy who takes care of me or are you this guy who's kind of a jerk?"
His answer was instantaneous. "I'm both those guys, babe. Your job is to get used to it."
There it was, another order. Not even an ultimatum. Just, "get used to it". ~ Kristen Ashley

As a kid, I couldn't sleep without this ratty stuffed elephant," she explains, not sure what made her think of it now. Maybe it's that she'll be soon seeing her dad again, or maybe it's just the plane keying up beneath her, prompting a childish wish for her old security blanket.
[Oliver]"I'm not sure that counts"
"Clearly you've never met Elephant"
He laughs, "Did you come up with that name all by yourself?"
"Damn right," she says ~ Jennifer E. Smith

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate) ~ Mary Oliver

For delightfully quirky descriptions of bizarre neurological syndromes that teach us a lot about how the brain works, there is no match for Oliver Sacks. ~ Francis Collins