Blake Nelson > Quotes

“But I think Cybil was my biggest fan. She cut out my articles and hung them in her locker and we were always cracking up how if you wrote the simplest, most obvious thing in the world people thought you were a genius.”
― Blake Nelson, Girl

“Life is ridiculous. It's not our fault.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“No matter what I do now, there are certain doors I have already closed, certain opportunities I'll never get back. There's nothing to be done, I guess. It is what it is.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“I like if you're reading something, and they're saying something you always thought, but they're putting it in the exact right way”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“Do you ever think about the ocean?" Nick asked me.
"What about it?" I said.
"Like what could live down there? Like how there's as much life down there as up here? Maybe more?"
"God Lives Underwater," said someone. "That's the name of a band. They're awesome."
"But seriously," Nick said, "it's like an alternate universe. Right here on our own planet."
"Right here, a hundred feet from us," said Sheila.
"Right here in my hair," said one of the girls who had swum, pulling some sea gunk out of her wet hair.
Everyone laughed quietly at that. Nick drank his beer. The wood crackled as it burned. We all stared at the black ocean.”
― Blake Nelson, They Came from Below

“That’s the thing: You can change things. You can repair mistakes. You can restart your whole life if you have to.

But some things you never get back. Certain people. Certain moments in time when you don’t know better than to shield your heart.

You don’t see those moments coming, you don’t know it when they’re happening, but later, as the plainness of life begins to show itself, you realize how important they were. You understand who really changed you, who made you what you are.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“Normal people never like me.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“And then I feel something else. Something that's totally new. I feel the tiniest sensation of hope. Maybe my life isn't over. Maybe my life has just begun.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“But what were you supposed to do with that weight? Once it was on you? Just be a man? Just suck it up? Maybe you were. Maybe that was the real test. Maybe that is exactly the thing that made you a man: the ability to function with the worst possible secrets in your brain. Which was why so many grown-up men seemed so ridiculous. They never felt that responsibility. They were untested, unproven; they were boys in grown-up clothes.”
― Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park

“On Friday night, my dad wants to have a family activity. so we go ice-skating. It's me and my mom and my dad and my sister. It's like we're all together. It's like a beautiful dream. It's like the Disney Channel. Except that my dad and I hate each other. And my mom hates herself. And my sister is humiliated by the bunch of us. And I'm secretly waiting for the inevitable devastation of our entire civilization. But except for that.”
― Blake Nelson, Destroy All Cars

“I stood there, watching her. The whole world was a dream, I realized. Everyone was acting in a bad soap opera. The whole world was one big FOX TV show.”
― Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park

“You need other people, Madeline. There's a great freedom in knowing that. And accepting that. And letting people in. Letting them help you.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“It was weird because my first couple stories had been so easy. Now it was like, the more you did it, the harder it became. But in another way, it was addicting. It was like gambling, every time you'd start another one you'd think this time I'm going to get it right....”
― Blake Nelson, Dream School

“He holds me. I am his in a way he probably isn't even aware of.
Boys shouldn't know what power they have. They would panic probably or just mess things up. But boys are who you give yourself to. Not your parents or your teachers or your "future". You give yourself to a boy.
And then you go for long walks at night and think about them and wonder what they will do to you in the end.”
― Blake Nelson

“I watch Stewart. He has the most interesting face. It is beautiful, young, almost childlike, and yet with a power and authority in his features. In another time he would have been a young warrior, a Lost Prince exiled from his kingdom. But he's from this time, this place, so he's just some "at risk" kid who can't find a place for himself in the straight world.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“It's hard to imagine talking to Lucy. But I can imagine sleeping with her. I have been imagining it quite regularly. I can't stop imagining it. Maybe it's time for my first Lucy Branch, my first truly physical relationship. And why do I assume it would be a bad thing? Maybe it's better with someone different from you. I could teach her how fluorocarbons affect the ozone. She could teach me about oral sex.

We would both become better people.”
― Blake Nelson, Destroy All Cars

“This is where I want to be now, alone with myself. Because I know that something has happened to me tonight, something that I’m not going to understand at first, something I need to just absorb and think about and get used to.

This is going to be hard for me. I can’t control this. I can’t stop what it will do to me.

But I want it. I want to be inside it, to feel it, forever.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“I said I looked like a dork and she said that was true, but there was something classic about my dorkiness. I was so open and my awkwardness and embarrassment were so clear and understandable. I was extremely watchable.”
― Blake Nelson, Dream School

“All the girls stared at me with hatred in their eyes. It was a big drama that had to be acted out. But deep down, nobody really cared. The other girls didn't care about Jennifer. Jennifer didn't care about me. I didn't care about anything.
Everyone was so full of crap.”
― Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park

“Those people who look so together. They’re as insecure as anyone. Maybe more so. You’re as smart as any of them.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“But I let myself love him anyway. I let myself love him with all my heart. I give myself that. I tell myself I deserve it.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“É o que têm os segredos, acabam por nos enlouquecer. Mas enlouquecem-nos mesmo. Isolam-nos dos outros. Separam-nos da nossa tribo. Acabam por nos destruir. A não ser que uma pessoa seja forte. A não ser que uma pessoa seja muito, muito forte.”
― Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park

“It's like we've entered a separate reality. Like now it's just the two of us, nothing else matters, no one exists.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“She had no place on this earth. There was no place where she was comfortable, no place she could relax, no place where she felt safe.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“It's so weird being straight. You have no defenses. Shit happens and you have to feel it. You have no choice.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“I'm a bit of a perfectionist, it turns out. Who knew?”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“Boys shouldn’t know what power they have. They would panic probably, or just mess things up. But boys are who you give yourself to. Not your parents, or your teachers, or your “future.” You give yourself to a boy.

And then you go for long walks at night and think about them and wonder what they will do to you in the end.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“Guys are like buses [...] Why get on the first one you see, when there’s another one coming right after? Or something like that. Or maybe it’s the opposite. I heard that on Oprah.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“If I had to describe Trish, I would say: “high school parking lot.” She smokes. She wears too much makeup. She probably gives great hand jobs.”
― Blake Nelson, Recovery Road

“I denounce the do-gooders, the feel-gooders, the “activist clubs,” and anyone else who makes people feel like the problem is being taken care of. Trust me. The problem is not being taken care of.”
― Blake Nelson, Destroy All Cars