Matthew Quick Quotes

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.

You don't always get to pick the role you're going to play in life, but it's good to play whatever role you got the best way you can.

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.

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.

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

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.

Air goes in and out
of my nose, throat, lungs, blood, heart
brain - and so I am

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

Pat, it's not sexual – it's modern dance.

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?

Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.

We really don't get to understand /why/ most of the time. It's true.

People should be nice to you, Leonard. You're a human being. You should expect people to be nice.

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

I still believe you fell into my life for a reason.

The bullies are always popular.
Why?
People love power.

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.

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

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.

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.