Matthew Quick Quotes

She’s fulfilled her obligation, assuaged her conscience by finding me in the hallway and giving me the chance to freak out, and I’ve played my role too, by remaining calm, pretending to be okay, and therefore giving her permission to cross me off her things-to-do list. Now she can move on, and I can too.Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.
Matthew Quick
Mom could make small things seem miraculous. That was her talent.
Matthew Quick
He never once tells me what Tiffany thinks or what is going on in her heart: the awful feelings, the conflicting impulses, the needs, the desperation, everything that makes her different from Ronnie and Veronica, who have each other and their daughter, Emily, and a good income and a house and everything else that keeps people from calling them "odd.
Matthew Quick
You're different. And I'm different too. Different is good. But different is hard. Believe me, I know.
Matthew Quick
Why didn't my father get to give Mom the fairy tale? Why do most people fail to give each other the fairy tale?
Matthew Quick
it’s a long race and you can always outwork talent in the end
Matthew Quick
Miracles happen on Christmas, Pat. Everybody knows that shit.
Matthew Quick
The P-38 WWII Nazi handgun looks comical lying on the breakfast table next to a bowl of oatmeal.
Matthew Quick
It felt like so many years' worth of anxiety and worry were trying to escape all at once—maybe like an emotional volcano, only my mom and dad, they didn't run away to save themselves but sprinted right into my lava. They both jumped up off the couch and wrapped their arms around me even though it meant touching each other. We stayed like that for a long time, and it felt good—almost enough to justify everything that had precipitated it, but not quite.
Matthew Quick
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
...I am uncontrollable and dangerous. But of course I do not say this to Jake, mostly because he has never been locked up and doesn't understand what it feels like to lose control, and he only wants to watch the football game now, and none of this means anything to him, because he has never been married and he has never lost someone like Nikki and he is not trying to improve his life at all, because 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
A lot of female teachers do this - flirt with male students. I wonder if that's the only way they know how to interact with men. Like they use their sexuality to get what they want.
Matthew Quick
Nobody knows anything when they are in their midtwenties.
Matthew Quick
Remember – it's a long race and you can always outwork talent in the end.
Matthew Quick
We really don't get to understand /why/ most of the time. It's true.
Matthew Quick
I knew that I had reached the end of childhood once I realized that adults in my life didn't know anymore than I did.
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
It felt like so many years' worth of anxiety and worry were trying to escape all at once—maybe like an emotional volcano, only my mom and dad, they didn't run away to save themselves but sprinted right into my lava.
Matthew Quick
PS. Docendo discimus. (Latin. By teaching, we learn.)
Matthew Quick
We're celebrating our freedom. We're celebrating our ability to be kids when everything is trying to take that away from us. It's a choice, Ty. We can do whatever we want.
Matthew Quick
Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.
Matthew Quick
And I understood why he didn’t need friends or to be accepted at our shitty racist high school, because he had his music, and that was so much better than anything we had to offer.
Matthew Quick
I’m a screwed-up person who no longerknows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I told you in my letter.
Matthew Quick
I believe in happy endings, and i feel this movie has advanced long enough.
Matthew Quick
Haven't you ever noticed that life is like a series of movies?
Matthew Quick
You may exist inthis world--but I exist tooand I will not yield
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
Silence has always been my default mode—my best defense against the rest of the world.
Matthew Quick
Then we talked a lot about our parents and how we didn't want to become them, but we had no other role models--or "maps," Alex kept saying. "My father is a terrible map, mostly because he doesn't ever lead me anywhere." And I thought about my parents being maps that led to places I didn't want to go-- and it made a shocking amount of sense, using the word maps to describe parents. If almost made you feel like you could fold Mom and Dad up and lock them away in the glove compartment of your car and just joyride for the rest of your life maybe.
Matthew Quick
I am not weak and can control my mind really well".
Matthew Quick
...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
... 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
A strange, beautiful new world awaits, Leonard.We've found an oasis in their ruins. We really have.You want to see it, so just hold on, okay?
Matthew Quick
Look, sometimes it’s OK with girls like this, they wanna have fun, and sometimes it’s not because they've got a broken wing and they’re hurt and they’re an easy target. In this case, this particular case, I think that wing is being fixed, my friend, and you gotta make sure that it’s mended and you’re getting in the way of that right now, okay, because she’s sensitive and she’s smart, she’s artistic. This is a great girl, you gotta be respectful to that. Come on, let me walk you to your car, you’re a better guy than this.
Matthew Quick
You need to know it's your actions that will make you a good person, not desire.
Matthew Quick
I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face
Matthew Quick
I found posts about how to slit your wrists the "right way", so you will actually die, and that depressed me, because people actually post stuff like that, and even though I wanted to know the answer, so I could weigh my options, that info maybe shouldn't be on the internet...But really - why do some people post the correct ways to commit suicide on the internet? Do they want weird, sad people like me to go away permanently? Do they think it's a good idea for some people to off themselves? How can you tell when you are one of those people who should slash his wrists the right way with a razor blade? Is there an answer for that too? I Googled but nothing concrete came up. Just ways to complete the mission. Not justification.
Matthew Quick
I've seen the way you've been looking at me. Don't bullshit me, Pat. I live in the addition around back, which is completely separate from the house, so there's no chance of my parents walking in on us. I hate the fact that you wore a football jersey to dinner, but you can fuck me as long as we turn the lights out first. Okay?
Matthew Quick
...Daisy doesn't 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 there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't 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 thing's 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
Matthew Quick
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 it's enough.So I sign and I sign and I sign.
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
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
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.
Matthew Quick
There's a lot for you to live for. Good things are definitely in your future, Leonard. I'm sure of it. You have no idea how many interesting people you'll meet after high school's over. Your life partner, your best friend, the most wonderful person you'll 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 you're strong enough to make it to the future where you'll meet.
Matthew Quick
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.
Matthew Quick
So the key is doing something that sets you apart forever in the minds of regular people.Something that matters.
Matthew Quick
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.
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
Pat, it's not sexual – it's modern dance.
Matthew Quick
There are a lot of lonely kids in this world, but the problem is that they don't 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.
Matthew Quick
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 that's fair? Why are men always the leaders in your church? Aren't women capable of leading too? Isn't 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?
Matthew Quick
Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship, Leonard. It really does.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.
Matthew Quick
You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life
Matthew Quick
Air goes in and outof my nose, throat, lungs, blood, heartbrain - and so I am
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
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
And I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, I really do. Can we still be friends?
Matthew Quick
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