Douglas Kennedy > Quotes

“The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“We can never change the story that made us what we are. It's a story accumulated by the manifold complexities-its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what happened to us. And we carry everywhere all that has shaped us-all that we lacked, all that we wanted but never got; all that we got but never wanted; all that was found and lost.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Moment

“Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“Wie bald 'nicht jetz' 'nie' wird. How soon 'not now' becomes 'never'.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Moment

“We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“There is much to be said for solitude.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

“All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

“...hate is a hard thing to sustain. Grief isn't. Grief is something that can stay with you for a very long time”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“But the strangest of all sensations is the moment after you have been freed of the baby--and the baby of you--and you are handed this tiny shriveled creature to hold for the first time... and you feel a mixture of unbelievable instant love and desperate fear.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony ...”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“We all crave latitude in life, yet simultaneously dig ourselves deeper into domestic entrapment. We may dream of traveling light but accumulate as much as we can to keep us burdened and rooted to one spot. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. Because-though we all muse on the theme of escape-we stil find the notion of responsibility irresistible. The career, the house, the dependents, the debt-it grounds us. Provides us with a necessary security, a reason to get upin the morning. It narrows choice and ergo, gives us certainty. And though just about every man I know rails against being so cul-de-saced by domesic burden, we all embrace it. Embrace it with a vengeance.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Big Picture

“... we seemed to possess a similar worldview: slightly jaded, fiercely independent ... ”
― Douglas Kennedy, A Special Relationship

“Once you've crossed over into that realm of nothingness, your story only really stays in the minds of those closest to you. And when they too vanish...”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

“We all end up ruing everything. It's the nature of this thing we call 'our condition.' Could, but didn't...Wanted to, but stopped myself...All the damn statements of regret we can never dodge.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“The lure of safety drags us into lives we'd prefer to dodge.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“All lives are extraordinary. All lives are simultaneously banal and obvious.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

“Discipline is all about the imposition of control-the belief that, by following a precise regime and avoiding distractions, you can somehow keep the disorder of life at bay.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“... the perennial outsider with his nose to the window, looking in on a world from which he felt excluded.”
― Douglas Kennedy, A Special Relationship

“Another curious thing about the slow progression out of depression: you begin to crave routine.”
― Douglas Kennedy, A Special Relationship

“biggest roadblocks you encounter in life are the ones you construct for yourself.”
― Douglas Kennedy, State Of The Union

“ We're all so preposterous, aren't we. Holding onto our traumas, our agonies, our small dramas and using them to sabotage that which we so want, and actually deserve. ' (Petra Dussman in 'The Moment')”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Moment

“But can you ever excise a bad parent? Though you might come to terms with all that they have psychologically bequeathed you, they can never really be expunged. They're the stubborn, permanent stain that will never entirely vanish in the wash.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“Money. The trickiest substance in life--as it's the way we keep score, measure our worth, and think we can control our destinies. Money: the essential lie.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“We all want to fix things. Just as we all believe that so much in life can be rectified. Mend fences, build bridges, reach out, engage in mutual healing.”
― Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World

“I could hear him swallowing hard, trying not to cry. Why is it that we always try to be brave at moments when bravery is futile?”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“When it comes to women, men only hear what they want to hear. It’s one of the many failures of their sex.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“There are moments when you think you will cry forever. You never do. Eventually, sheer physical exhaustion forces you to stop, to settle, to becalm yourself amidst all the mad turbulence of bereavement.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“At dawn, nothing seems certain... yet everything appears possible.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness

“...човек става наистина възрастен, когато съумее да прости на родителите си това, че те имат точно толкова недостатъци, колкото който и да е друг човек ... и после да признае, че въпреки ограничеността на собствените си разбирания, те са направили за него най-доброто, на което са способни.”
― Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness