J.R. Moehringer > Quotes

“I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. . . . Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It's about words. It's about a man dealing with life. Okay?”
― J.R. Moehringer

“While I fear that we're drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we're defined by what embraces us.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“I don't know. Sometimes I try to say what's on my mind and it comes out sounding like I ate a dictionary and I'm shitting pages. Sorry”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“Your best is whatever you can do comfortably without having a breakdown.”
― J R Moehringer, The Tender Bar

“History is the narrative of people searching for a place to go.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“I began dividing life in absolutes... Things and people were either perfectly bad, or perfectly good, and when life didn't obey this black-and-white rule, when things or people were complex or contradictory, I pretended otherwise. I turned every defeat into a disaster, every success into an epic triumph, and separated all people into heroes or villains. Unable to bear ambiguity, I built a barricade of delusions against it. ”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“A book is the only real escape from this fallen world. Aside from death.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“Time is a thief, but he's not subtle. He's a thug. And youth is a little old lady walking through the park with a pocketbook full of cash. You want to avoid being like youth? You want to keep time from robbing you? Hold on for dear life, boys. When time tries to snatch something from you, just grab tighter. Don't let go. That's what memory is. Not letting go.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“Any book is better than no book. Slowly, surely, one will lead you to another, which will lead you to the best.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“Of course many bars in Manhasset, like bars everywhere, were nasty places, full of pickled people marinating in regret.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. What’s it about? Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It’s about words. It’s about a man dealing with life. Okay?”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“Do you know why God invented writers? Because he loves a good story. And he doesn't give a damn about the words. Words are the curain we've hung between him and our true selves. Try not to think about the words. Don't strin for the perfect sentence. There's no such thing. Writing si guesswork. Every sentence is an educated guess, the readers as much as yours.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“It takes just as many men to build a sturdy man, son, as it does to build a tower. You will look back on this time and remember remarkably little of it, excpt the extent to which I tried or did not try.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“Every book is a miracle,' Bill said. 'Every book represents a moment when someone sat quietly - and that quiet is part of the miracle, make no mistake - and tried to tell the rest of us a story.”
― J.R. Moehringer

“It cost me everything, absolutely everything, but maybe it's not love if it doesn't cost us everything.”
― J.R. Moehringer

“To be a man, a boy must see a man.”
― J R Moehringer

“People just don't understand how many men it takes to build one good man. Next time you're in Manhattan and you see one of those mighty skyscrapers going up, pay attention to how many men are engaged in the enterprise. It takes just as many men to build a sturdy man, son, as it does to build a tower.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“I love to read sir. I always have. But when I walk into a library or a bookshop, I get overwhelmed. I don't know where to start.
Start anywhere.
How do I know what's worth my time and what's a waste?
None of it is waste. Any book is better than no book. Slowly, surely, one will lead you to another, which will lead you to the best.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“We went there for everything we needed. We went there when thirsty, of course, and when hungry, and when dead tired. We went there when happy, to celebrate, and when sad, to sulk. We went there after weddings and funerals, for something to settle our nerves, and always for a shot of courage just before. We went there when we didn't know what we needed, hoping someone might tell us. We went there when looking for love, or sex, or trouble, or for someone who had gone missing, because sooner or later everyone turned up there. Most of all we went there when we needed to be found.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“To simply hold a book, to imagine what it might say, would be a comfort.”
― J. R. Moehringer

“Did you read where the great-grandson of Nathan Hale got married this weekend? Give me liberty or give me death. That’s what the groom will be saying in about one month.”
― J R Moehringer, The Tender Bar

“Truth has its place. In a courtroom, certainly. A boardroom? I don't know. I think truth is in the listener. Truth is something the listener bestows on a story-- or not”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“[G]randma was always afraid of something. She set aside time each day for dread. And not nameless dread. She was quite specific about the various tragedies stalking her. She feared pneumonia, muggers, riptides, meteors, drunk drivers, drug addicts, serial killers, tornadoes, doctors, unscrupulous grocery clerks, and the Russians. The depth of Grandma’s dread came home to me when she bought a lottery ticket and sat before the tv as the numbers were called. After her first three numbers were a match, she began praying feverishly that she wouldn’t have the next three. She dreaded winning, for fear that her heart would give out.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“Collins was in the space capsule all alone. While his partners were down there collecting rocks, Collins was manning the wheel. Twenty-six times he circled the moon—solo. Imagine? He was completely out of radio contact. Couldn’t talk to his partners. Couldn’t talk to NASA. He was cut off from every living soul in the universe. If he panicked, if he fucked up, if he pushed the wrong button, he’d strand Armstrong and Aldrin. Or if they did something wrong, if their lunar car broke down, if they couldn’t restart the thing, if they couldn’t blast off and reconnect with Collins forty-five miles above the moon, he’d have to head back to earth all by himself. Leave his partners to die. Slowly running out of air. While watching earth in the distance. It was such a real possibility, Collins returning to earth by himself, that Nixon wrote up a speech to the nation. Collins—now that’s one stone-cold wheelman. That’s the guy you want sitting at the wheel of a gassed-up Ford while you’re inside a bank.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“Also, Willie, I dig telling the truth. Words can be twisted but a photo never lies.
Sutton laughs.
What’s funny? Photographer says.
Nothing. Except—that’s pure horseshit kid. I can’t think of anything that lies more than a photo. In fact every photo is a dirty stinking lie because it’s a frozen moment—and time can’t be frozen. Some of the biggest lies I’ve ever run across have been photos. Some of them were of me.”
― J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

“Fear will be the fuel for all your success, and the root cause of all your failures, and the underlying dilemma in every story you tell yourself about yourself. And the only chance you’ll have against fear? Follow it. Steer by it. Don’t think of fear as the villain. Think of fear as your guide, your pathfinder—your Natty”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar

“His current theory is that Sutton lived three separate lives. The one he remembered, the one he told people about, the one that really happened.”
― J. R. Moehringer

“One old bourbon drinker told me that a man’s life is all a matter of mountains and caves—mountains we must climb, caves where we hide when we can’t face our mountains.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar

“And because I found it in my youth, the bar was that much more sacred, its image clouded by that special reverence children accord those places where they feel safe. Others might feel this way about a classroom or playground, a theater or church, a laboratory or library or stadium. Even a home. But none of these places claimed me. We exalt what is at hand. Had I grown up beside a river or an ocean, some natural avenue of self-discovery and escape, I might have mythologized it. Instead I grew up 142 steps from a glorious old American tavern, and that has made all the difference.”
― J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir

“If you think Sigourney Weaver is
sexy then you are a homosexual.”
― J R Moehringer, The Tender Bar