John Verdon > Quotes

“The stories people tell you about themselves seem to retain the possibility of being false. But what you discover about them by yourself seems to be the truth.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“The sun sets and we sleep. The sun rises and we wake. We wake and, ever so briefly, ever so blindly, we enjoy the fantasy of beginning anew. Then, without fail, reality reasserts its presence.”
― John Verdon, Let the Devil Sleep

“This case is complex. It's got layers to it, Davey. It's a fucking onion... You're a natural-born onion peeler -- the best that ever was.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“The worst pain in our lives comes from the mistakes we refuse to acknowledge--the things we've done that are so our of harmony with who we are that we can't bear to look at them.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“The person I think I am is terrified of the person I really am, terrified of what others would think of that person. What would they do to me if they knew the person I really was? Better to be safe! Better to hide the real person, starve the real person, bury the real person!”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“What he took he will give, when he gets what he gave.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“A shrink once told me that an expectation is a resentment waiting to be born.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“The purpose of life is to get as close as we can to other people.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“It was a curious thing about the past--how it lay in wait for you, quietly, invisibly, almost as though it weren't there. You might be tempted to think it was gone, no longer existed. Then, like a pheasant flushed from cover, it would roar up in an explosion of sound, color, motion--shockingly alive.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“...but grief, he'd discovered, was not an experience you went through once and then 'moved on' (as the idiotic popular phrase would have it). The truth was that it came over you in successive waves - waves separated by periods of numbness, periods of forgetfulness, periods of ordinary living.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“Nothing leaves you more vulnerable to your past than the illusion that you've dealt with it.”
― John Verdon, Wolf Lake

“Few behaviors of other people are more irritating than those that display our own faults in an unattractive way.”
― John Verdon, Peter Pan Must Die

“For her, people in general were a plus, a source of positive stimulation (with exceptions such as the predatory Sonya Reynolds). For Gurney, people in general were a minus, a drain on his energy (with exception such as the encouraging Sonya Reynolds).”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“They looked like linebackers on a prison football team, whose idea of commincation was to smash into something at full speed, preferably another person.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“Hardwick was showing the frustration of a man trying to hold his groceries inside a ripped bag.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“Never go down to the darkest room. Stay far away from the rotting coffin. If you want to live through the night, let the devil sleep.”
― John Verdon

“Whenever you’re disturbed, try to identify the fear beneath the disturbance. The root is always fear, and unless we face it, we tend to act badly.”
― John Verdon, Let the Devil Sleep

“The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we’re wrong we fight the hardest to prove we’re right.” Caught”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“The only time a man can do the right thing is right now.”
― John Verdon, White River Burning

“Eis uma coisa curiosa acerca do passado: a forma como jaz à nossa espera, silencioso, invisível, quase como se ali não estivesse. Podemos ter a tentação de julgar que desapareceu, que já não existe. De repente, como um faisão espantado para fora do seu esconderijo, erguer-se-á numa explosão de som, cor e movimento: escandalosamente vivo.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“Era una sonrisa que podría hacer que un hombre creyera que la vida era buena.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“He was all too aware of how one's perceptions can start lining up to support a particular conclusion. Once a pattern begins to take shape, however erroneous it might be, the mind unconsciously favors any data points that support it and discounts any that don't.”
― John Verdon, Peter Pan Must Die

“Sexual energy in general has tremendous power, the power to concentrate one's attention like nothing else, to become the sole reality, to warp judgement, to obliterate pain and the perception of risk. The power to make all other considerations irrelevant. There is no force on earth that comes close to it in its power to blind and drive the individual in its grip.”
― John Verdon, Shut Your Eyes Tight

“We each seem to be wired to believe my situation causes my problems but your personality causes yours. This creates trouble.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“He knew how isolated he could become and hardly notice it was happening. How relationships could slip away like smoke in the breeze. How easily he could sink into himself. How natural and benign his isolating obsessions could seem.”
― John Verdon, Let the Devil Sleep

“Coincidences do occur, David. That’s why the word exists.”
― John Verdon, Let the Devil Sleep

“Sherlock Holmes, "İmkansız olanı elerseniz,elimizde kalan ne kadar mümkün görünmese de doğrudur," derdi.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“Oysa tek gerçek şu; yeterince uzun yaşarsanız her şeyi, herkesi kaybedersiniz.”
― John Verdon, Let the Devil Sleep

“But how could he stop being what he was? However much he cared for her, however much he wanted to be with her, however much he wanted her to be happy, how could he become someone he wasn't?”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number

“The personal collisions that upset us the most, the ones we seem powerless to let go of, are those in which we played a role that we are unwilling to acknowledge. That’s why the pain lasts—because we refuse to look at its source. We cannot detach it, because we refuse to look at the point of attachment.”
― John Verdon, Think of a Number