Jonathan Tropper > Quotes

“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.”
― Jonathan Tropper, The Book of Joe

“You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“It would be a terrible mistake to go through life thinking that people are the sum total of what you see.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Even under the best of circumstances, there's just something so damn tragic about growing up.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“You never know when it will be the last time you'll see your father, or kiss your wife, or play with your little brother, but there's always a last time. If you could remember every last time, you'd never stop grieving.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“You're terrified of being alone. Anything you do now will be motivated by that fear. You have to stop worrying about finding love again. It will come when it comes. Get comfortable with being alone. It will empower you.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“And I just want to tell you, at some point it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. At some point, being
angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning
yourself without thinking about it.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“I loved her for so long. Our past trails behind us like a comet's tail, the future stretched out before us like the universe. Things happen. People get lost and love breaks.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“I may not be old but I’m too old to have this much nothing”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“It's just hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically fucked.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“We are injured and angry, scared and sad. Some families, like some couples, become toxic to each other after prolonged exposure.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Phillip is the Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.
The tears threaten to return, so I willfully banish all thoughts from my head and take a few more deep breaths. I'm suddenly dizzy from the panic attack I've just suffered, and I close my eyes, resting my head against the warm leather of my steering wheel. Loneliness doesn't exist on any single plane of consciousness. It's generally a low throb, barely audible, like the hum of a Mercedes engine in park, but every so often the demands of the highway call for a burst of acceleration, and the hum becomes a thunderous, elemental roar, and once again you're reminded of what this baby's carrying under the hood.”
― Jonathan Tropper, The Book of Joe

“Love made us partners in narcissism, and we talked ceaselessly about how close we were, how perfect our connection was, like we were the first people in history to ever get it exactly right.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Sometimes you walk past a pretty girl on the street there's something beyond beauty in her face, something warm and smart and inviting, and in the three seconds you have to look at her, you actually fall in love, and in those moments, you can actually know the taste of her kiss, the feel of her skin against yours, the sound of her laugh, how she'll look at you and make you whole. And then she's gone, and in the five seconds afterwards, you mourn her loss with more sadness than you'll ever admit to. ”
― Jonathan Tropper, How to Talk to a Widower

“It's true. somewhere inside us we are all the ages we have ever been. We're the 3 year old who got bit by the dog. We're the 6 year old our mother lost track of at the mall. We're the 10 year old who get tickled till we wet our pants. We're the 13 year old shy kid with zits. We're the 16 year old no one asked to the prom, and so on. We walk around in the bodies of adults until someone presses the right button and summons up one of those kids.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“We are all smiling in the picture, three brothers having a grand old time just playing around in the living room, no agendas, no buried resentments or permanent scars. Even under the best of circumstances, there's just something so damn tragic about growing up.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“I sit down on the bed, cradling her little head against my shoulder, inhaling her sweet baby scent. Someday she'll get older, and the world will start having its way with her. She'll throw temper tantrums, she'll need speech therapy, she'll grow breasts and have pimples, she'll fight with her parents, she'll worry about her weight, she'll put out, she'll have her heart broken, she'll be happy, she'll be lonely, she'll be complicated, she'll be confused, she'll be depressed, she'll fall in love and get married, and she'll have a baby of her own. But right now she is pure and undiminished and beautiful.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.”
― Jonathon Tropper

“At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it.”
― Jonathan Tropper

“That's the thing about life; everything feels so permanent, but you can disappear in an instant.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“I’m living in separate universes, and I have no idea where I actually belong.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“Forgiveness has its comforts, but it can never give you back what you've lost.”
― Jonathan Tropper, One Last Thing Before I Go

“I'm not the same person I was. I'm fucked up." I give her a sideways glance. "I am," she says. "You haven't even scratched the surface."

"I find that most people worth knowing are fucked up in some way or another.”
― Jonathan Tropper, The Book of Joe

“...you realize that you don't understand yourself any better than you understand anyone else.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“I wasted a lot of time being angry, time I can't get back. And now I see you, so angry about what happened to your marriage, and I just want to tell you, at some point it doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it.”
― Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

“The thing about living alone is that it gives you a lot of time to think. You don't necessarily reach any conclusions, because wisdom is largely a function of intelligence and self-awareness, not time on your hands. But you do become very good at thinking yourself into endless loops of desperation in half the time it would take a normal person.”
― Jonathan Tropper, One Last Thing Before I Go