Quotes by Matthew Quick

Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this its a sin if you dont reach back... Im telling you.

And I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, I really do. Can we still be friends?

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.

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 dont know why, but it always makes me feel better.

Air goes in and outof my nose, throat, lungs, blood, heartbrain - and so I am

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

Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship, Leonard. It really does.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.

Why would god allow the Holocaust to happen? If god made everything, why did he invent sin to trick us and then hold our sins against us? Why are there so many religions in the world if god created the world and wants us to be Christian? Why does god allow people to fight wars over him? What if you were born in a different culture and never even heard of Jesus Christ—would god send you to hell for not being Christian? And if so, do you believe thats fair? Why are men always the leaders in your church? Arent women capable of leading too? Isnt such a patriarchal system sexist in this day and age? Why do so many babies die? Why are there so many poor people in the world? Did Jesus visit any other planets in distant unknown universes?

There are a lot of lonely kids in this world, but the problem is that they dont know about each other. If the lonely kids could just team up, a lot of good things would happen, but the world is incredibly afraid of lonely people teaming up, and so it does its best to keep them apart.

Pat, its not sexual – its modern dance.

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.

you don’t put demands on people and you never say anything negative--ever. So many people suck the life out of everyone they’re around, but you don’t do that. You give people strength just by being you.

So the key is doing something that sets you apart forever in the minds of regular people.Something that matters.

The whole time I pretend I have mental telepathy. And with my mind only, I’ll say — or think? — to the target, Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a rollercoaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never evenheard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smellsto be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to thatmiserable place you go every day. Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. That’s what they tell us at school, but if you keep getting on that train and going to the place you hate I’m going to start thinking the people at school are liars like the Nazis who told the Jews they were just being relocated to work factories. Don’t do that to us. Tell us the truth. If adulthood is working some death-camp job you hate for the rest of your life, divorcing your secretly criminal husband, being disappointed in your son, being stressed and miserable, and dating a poser and pretending he’s a hero when he’s really a lousy person and anyone can tell that just by shaking his slimy hand — if it doesn’t get any better, I need to know right now. Just tell me. Spare me from some awful fucking fate. Please.

Theres a lot for you to live for. Good things are definitely in your future, Leonard. Im sure of it. You have no idea how many interesting people youll meet after high schools over. Your life partner, your best friend, the most wonderful person youll ever know is sitting in some high school right now waiting to graduate and walk into your life - maybe even feeling all the same things you are, maybe even wondering about you, hoping that youre strong enough to make it to the future where youll meet.

Real life often ends badly, like our marriage did, Pat. And literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for people to endure nobly.

Im trying to let him know what Im about to do.Im hoping he can save me, even though I realize he cant.

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

Another thought hits me hard as a lawn dart to the eye: this moment is so terribly unimportant to the rest of the world, yet it means everything to me somehow - and its enough.So I sign and I sign and I sign.

...Daisy doesnt even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because theres no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as its written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesnt believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One things for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9