Top 100 Matthew Quick Quotes
#1. When something bad happens to us, something good happens - often to someone else. And that's The Good Luck of Right Now. We must believe it. We must. We must. We must.
Matthew Quick
#2. I'm an incredibly emotional person, but I always feel bad about that. The work is therapy ... I need to emote wildly while I write. I weep. I'll laugh, get excited, and get up and pace. I try to take the emotional journey with the characters.
Matthew Quick
#3. People enter our lives for a season, a reason, or a lifetime.
Matthew Quick
#5. It's so much easier to shut the refrigerator door, which is totally a metaphor, I realize, for my life
Matthew Quick
#6. The mental health conversation is very important to me. I have friends that struggle with various mental illnesses. I've struggled with depression and anxiety. I'm very interested in how we deal with that.
Matthew Quick
#7. Cripple coming through! Cripple coming through! Move out the way!
Matthew Quick
#8. I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood and was raised by a man who did not emote, ever ... I always cry at movies, and when I was a kid, I would try to hide it. It wasn't something a kid in Oaklyn, N.J., did. So I have these weird hang-ups about emotions.
Matthew Quick
#9. She gazes into her own pupils and sees the void that opened up inside of her, swallowing everything like some black hole of happiness ...
Matthew Quick
#10. Somehow I know that Nikki will never love me as much-no matter how much I improve my character.
Matthew Quick
#11. When people have awful ideas about your identity, that's just the way it will stay no matter what you do.
Matthew Quick
#12. Because he doesn't ever feel the war that goes on in my chest every single fucking day
Matthew Quick
#13. 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
#14. You cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.
Matthew Quick
#15. I like the way Chee kept God magical, sorta like Santa Claus when you're a kid. More priests should take this approach, because there is a frickin' reason why Santa Claus is more popular than Jesus nowadays.
Matthew Quick
#16. When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.
Matthew Quick
#17. You'll be with my husband, and I'll be with so many sisters who see no visions. Who have no eyes to see, nor ears to hear -
Matthew Quick
#18. 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
#19. Irish ex-priests don't succumb to drunkenness, we just become more talkative on whiskey,
Matthew Quick
#20. Miracles happen on Christmas, Pat. Everybody knows that shit.
Matthew Quick
#21. 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
#22. I'm from a family of bankers and businessmen, and here I am, the artist, the black sheep.
Matthew Quick
#23. I think about how fragile people are, how anyone can disappear in a second and be gone forever.
Matthew Quick
#24. And I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, I really do. Can we still be friends?
Matthew Quick
#25. Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back ... I'm telling you.
Matthew Quick
#26. 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
#27. I'm crying again because I'm such a fucking waste - such a fucking non-person.
Matthew Quick
#28. Fly! There's a lot of sky out there for brave birds.
Matthew Quick
#30. 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
#31. 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
#32. Perfect doesn't exist for people like us, Bartholomew. Passable. That's what I want. Just simply passable. If I could have a passable existence, I think I'd be very grateful.
Matthew Quick
#33. 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
#34. But you also pay a high price when you order people to do things that they can't do - especially people with a strong sense of self, people with rebel personalities.
Matthew Quick
#35. You can lose yourself in repetition - quiet your thoughts; I learned the value of this at a very young age.
Matthew Quick
#36. 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
#37. It's so quiet in my room that I wonder if this is what being dead sounds like.
Matthew Quick
#38. It was like once again someone was labeling me and putting me in a box just as soon I expressed myself.
Matthew Quick
#39. Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take.
Matthew Quick
#40. I've found that being blunt sometimes makes life easier for everyone
Matthew Quick
#42. Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.
Matthew Quick
#43. Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.
Matthew Quick
#44. The look in his eyes was devastating, because I saw hatred swirling around in his pupils.
Matthew Quick
#46. High school students die all over the country - hell, all over the world - every day, and the world keeps spinning. What does it matter? What do any of us matter? What is the point?
Matthew Quick
#47. 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
#48. And the whole time I wished your mind was a sea we could scuba dive in together because I'd like to see the LOVE statue that sits at the bottom of your consciousness.
Matthew Quick
#49. 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
#51. You ever feel like you're sending out a light but no one sees it?
Matthew Quick
#52. My only hope is that someday-after you have stabilized your mental health-you will take comfort in the fact that I reached out to you after all that happened.
Matthew Quick
#53. You might like that one. But I'll tell you the same thing I tell my students when they complain about the depressing nature of American literature: life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly ( ... )
Matthew Quick
#54. 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
#55. Cherishing the welfare of others to the point where we are unable to bear the sight of their misery.' The
Matthew Quick
#56. A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?" Albert Einstein
Matthew Quick
#58. Tell me that you won't live your life afraid, but will grow up and live a better life than your mother could ever imagine.
Matthew Quick
#59. How many
Pieces
Of bread
Separate
These words:
Needy,
Fine,
Wasteful?
Matthew Quick
#60. I think it's strange to live in a house with someone you cannot talk to - especially when that someone is your father - and the thought makes me a little sad.
Matthew Quick
#61. If Terrell Owens is really depressed or mentally unstable, why do the people I love use it as an excuse to talk badly about him?
Matthew Quick
#62. He's just going to buy alcohol or drugs, you know, Lauren said, which made me sad, because she didn't know that man at all, let alone whether he had a dependency problem.
Matthew Quick
#63. Is there anyone worth admiring in the world? Or does everyone let you down eventually?
Matthew Quick
#64. I got to thinking that the world would be a better place if they gave medals to great teachers rather than just soldiers who kill their enemies in wars.
Matthew Quick
#65. PS. Docendo discimus. (Latin. By teaching, we learn.)
Matthew Quick
#66. 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
#67. I feel as though my penance for the day is being done and that maybe God will be pleased enough to lend me some help, which I think is why He has been showing me interesting clouds for the past week.
Matthew Quick
#68. 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
#69. Why did You give us so many stories about miracles? Why did You
send Your Son down from heaven? Why did You give us movies if life doesn't ever end well?
What kind of fucking God are You? Do You want me to be miserable for the rest of my life?
Matthew Quick
#70. You could have that sort of life if you ask God for it. If you give your life to God, He will provide for you in marvelous ways. He promises us that. If He takes care of the sparrows, how much more will He take care of us?
Matthew Quick
#71. Life is random and fucked-up and arbitrary, until you find someone who can make sense of it all for you - if only temporarily.
Matthew Quick
#72. I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I'm empty! I have nothing!
Matthew Quick
#73. That's just a story."
"So are we
we're stories too," Russ says.
Matthew Quick
#74. 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
#75. I always talk to young writers about when you make art in your room, you make art. And when you send it to New York and L.A., you have to be a professional. Of course, when you sell your book rights as an option for a movie, you have to be a professional about that.
Matthew Quick
#76. You know what you call a herd of unicorns? A blessing. True.
Matthew Quick
#77. I am not weak and can control my mind really well.
Matthew Quick
#78. There are no guarantees when it comes to such treacherous things as friendship. It's a tricky business.
Matthew Quick
#79. She looks sad. She looks angry. She looks different from everyone else I know - she cannot put on that happy face others wear when they know they are being watched. She doesn't put on a face for me, which makes me trust her somehow.
Matthew Quick
#80. You call me a princess and sometimes we put on as much gold as we can, and you call me "Jay-Z," and then laugh so hard.
Matthew Quick
#81. I tend to think of love as a woman. The male version - Cupid, for instance - always seems to dumb to me. Shooting arrows like love is a weapon.
Matthew Quick
#82. 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
#83. The only way to beat my crazy was by doing something even crazier. Thank you. I love you. I knew it from the moment I saw you. I'm sorry it took me so long to catch up.
Matthew Quick
#84. What if I had the power to save both of us - all of us - all along?
Matthew Quick
#85. I'm trying to let him know what I'm about to do.
I'm hoping he can save me, even though I realize he can't.
Matthew Quick
#86. After I returned to New Jersey, I thought I was safe, because I did not think Kenny G could leave the bad place, which I realize is silly now - because Kenny G is extremely talented and resourceful and a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Matthew Quick
#87. I write about people who are usually damaged or neglected by society finding each other and forming relationships that are quite extraordinary and in some cases life-saving. I've had a few of those relationships, which I value highly.
Matthew Quick
#88. Do you like foreign films?"
"With subtitles?"
"Yes."
"I hate those types of films."
"Me too," Cliff says. "Mostly because - "
"No happy endings.
Matthew Quick
#89. 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
#90. 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
#92. Only you weren't regular at all
you were full of magic.
Matthew Quick
#93. You're different. And I'm different too. Different is good. But different is hard. Believe me, I know.
Matthew Quick
#94. The words stopped and the spinning feeling in my head, if only because it felt as though someone had had all my thoughts before, which was comforting, like knowing that people had survived a tornado using the same basement you were currently locked away in ...
Matthew Quick
#95. There are a lot of lonely kids in this world, but the problem is they don't know about each other.
Matthew Quick
#96. He keeps whispering, "You're okay," and I simultaneously love him and hate him for saying that. I'm fucking not okay at all. And yet it's exactly what I most want to be: okay. He can't give that to me, but I love him for trying.
Matthew Quick
#97. You must sometimes pay a high price for individuality, especially if you are a woman.
Matthew Quick
#98. You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life
Matthew Quick
#99. Nobody knows anything when they are in their midtwenties.
Matthew Quick
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