Ed Tarkington > Quotes

“But only a few have the will -- be it born of courage or recklessness, folly or sublime wisdom -- to act and, by their action, transform themselves. They will pay for their courage, of course; the world does not treat its "others" lightly. But so will the rest of us -- the ones who love them -- haunted as we are by our envy of their bright, burning beauty, which we can bear neither to look at nor to turn away from.”
― Ed Tarkington

“You once told me you wanted to forget the past," I said. "That you wanted to file it away and pretend that it never happened."
"But we don't get that, do we?" she said. "Even if we forget it, it's still there, like a snake in the grass, ready to strike you if you stumble too close to it.”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“Life happens in moments, she said to me. Sometimes the most thoughtless, accidental, seemingly irrelevant choices seem to ripple on endlessly. Sometimes the weight of the choice is obvious. That”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“You can't change the past; you just have to find a way to live with it.”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“What would it mean to believe that my existence was the consequence of a ruinous error in judgment? “You”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“We were perched on the precipice of manhood, drunk on our own importance, our futures promising, the present full of opportunity for seemingly endless firsts and lasts--first drink, first kiss, first love, first lay; last dance, last test, last performance, last season, last game. There were many dance and parties to attend: homecoming at both Steptoe and Yeatman, Steptoe's winter formal, holiday celebrations, and, in the spring, proms and the Tennessee Breeders' Cup. At times, it seemed our education was getting in the way of the events surrounding it.”
― Ed Tarkington, The Fortunate Ones

“Only love can break your heart. And who wants to live without love?”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“Maybe to those who possess it, ambition is an instinct as natural and unconscious as any other, the same kind of winnowing characteristic that led one ancient organism to crawl out of the water while another stayed behind, awaiting extinction.”
― Ed Tarkington, The Fortunate Ones

“I wasn't sure I could believe a word she was saying. But I wanted to hear it all. Truth or fiction, I needed a story.”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart

“What I saw—what I sensed but could not yet comprehend—was the arc of a life that was not just the rise and fall of a small, forgettable man, but the story of the American Century: its booms and busts, its catastrophes and regenerations, its fortunes built up from sweat and moxie only to be dashed by bad luck and bad choices, its false hopes and promises broken by the plain fact that we are all mere antic clay, bedeviled by the mystery that animates us.”
― Ed Tarkington, Only Love Can Break Your Heart