Quotes by Miranda July

I walked down the hall and saw that [she] was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. Its a slippery slope, and its best just to sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and youre not sure if you are one.

Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They cant see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.

... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

Sometimes I lie in bed trying to decide which of my friends I truly care about, and I always come to the same conclusion: none of them.

You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but its not true. Generally, people dont like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.

We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.

In the recurring dream everything has already fallen down, and I’m underneath. I’m crawling, sometimes for days, under the rubble. And as I crawl I realize that this one was the Big One. It was the earthquake that shook the whole world, and every single thing was destroyed. But this isn’t the scary part. That part always comes right before I wake up. I am crawling and then suddenly I remember: the earthquake happened years ago. This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming something else.

Tom began screaming, and I wondered if the babys soft brain was, in this moment, changing shape in response to the violent stimuli. I tried to intellectualize the noise to protect the babys psyche. I whispered: Isnt that interesting to hear a man scream? Doesnt that challenge our stereotypes of what men can do? And then I tried, Shhhhhhhhh.

She looked utterly betrayed, as betrayed as the most betrayed person in Shakespeare.

This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.

I wondered how many other things had flown past me into death. Perhaps many. Perhaps I was flying past them, like the grim reaper, signaling the end. This would explain so much.

And why had Debs last boyfriend dumped her? I dumped him. Maybe you didnt French-kiss him enough. I promise you that wasnt it. Tell me how many times a day you kissed, and Ill say if it was enough. Four hundred. Not enough.

Maybe he wouldnt say anything, which is the worst thing men do.

And it struck me that maybe True magazine had been wrong. Maybe there are no New Men. Maybe there are only the living and the dead, and all those who are living deserve each other and are equal to each other.

Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.

In the weeks that followed, we amazed ourselves. Our habits slid apart easily...And our very few intimacies were simply discontinued. Where did they go, those things we did? Were they recycled? Did some new couple in China do them? Were a Swedish man and woman foot to foot at this very moment?

Was I like honey thinking its a small bear, not realizing the bear is just the shape of its bottle? -Cheryl

So this was what it was like not to be me.

For a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again.