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“I want to bottle this moment up in a leakproof container, because there's magic here. There's hope....
But I can't bottle this. Can't cage it. Can't contain it in any fashion. Because hope, like everything that lives in the wild, dies if it's not given the space to thrive.
[Rose Yates]”
―
But I can't bottle this. Can't cage it. Can't contain it in any fashion. Because hope, like everything that lives in the wild, dies if it's not given the space to thrive.
[Rose Yates]”
―
“...the closer you get to someone, the heavier all your secrets weigh.
[Rose Yates]”
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[Rose Yates]”
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“Everything crumbles eventually...That's how the world makes room for new things.
[Jackie Pearson]”
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[Jackie Pearson]”
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“The concept of tomorrow is an illusion, a sweeping gesture of time. Marketing.
-Mister Tenders Girl-”
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-Mister Tenders Girl-”
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“Listen to me,' my father tells him, still squeezing Max's bony hand. 'A handshake isn't a sign of friendship. It's an assessment. You versus the other guy. Who would win in a fight? That's what I want you to think about. You need to show the other guy that if you absolutely had to, you could tear his throat out. Now, squeeze like you mean it, son.”
―
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“How do you define a vice, exactly? At what point does something cross the line between being a simple human frailty and a significant character flaw?
[Rose Yates]”
―
[Rose Yates]”
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“There are roads we have to take in life knowing there's a small chance they lead over a cliff.”
―
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“Are you rage, wrapped in skin, tight like leather dried in the desert sun?
From: "The Comfort of Black”
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From: "The Comfort of Black”
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“I haven't seen my father in nine years. There are no hugs. Hugs are luxuries of the weak, and the Yates family tree is carved from petrified wood.
[Rose Yates]”
―
[Rose Yates]”
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“At some point, all you can do is pray. This is true whether or not you even believe in God.”
― Mister Tender's Girl
― Mister Tender's Girl
“Under the pink wash of dawn, an unexpected foot of snow suffocates the landscape. The sight of so much transcendent white causes me to stare for minutes on end, mesmerized. More than mesmerized. In absolute awe.
I've experienced this one other time: freshman year of high school, a ten-day trip to Italy with my school....
It was the first and only time I've seen Michelangelo's -La Pietà-. It took a moment to realize what it was, but then it clicked. This was Mary holding the body of her son. I had seen a thousand images of Jesus on the trip, but this sculpture grabbed my heart and squeezed so hard I stopped breathing. At that age, I cared little for art and had no connection with Jesus, but in that moment, I was so transfixed by this sculpture -- -how could it be so smooth?- --that I began to weep. Right there. Tears fell, and I thought I was having some kind of religious experience.
But it wasn't that. It was the combination of profound beauty and sadness at such an exquisite level that it left me no option other than to cry. I hadn't experienced anything like that again.
Until now.
This snowfall.
The beauty enveloping the sadness.
With the tears welling in my eyes, I think once again about death. The rainbow in the cornfield. It's all so gorgeous, and it's all so tragic. The extremes of human emotion and how ironic that thoughts of dying fill me with such life.
I'm still staring transfixed at the world outside when my father's voice resonates behind me.
'What a fuckhole of a mess out there.'
And the beauty is gone.
The sadness, however, remains.
[Rose Yates]”
―
I've experienced this one other time: freshman year of high school, a ten-day trip to Italy with my school....
It was the first and only time I've seen Michelangelo's -La Pietà-. It took a moment to realize what it was, but then it clicked. This was Mary holding the body of her son. I had seen a thousand images of Jesus on the trip, but this sculpture grabbed my heart and squeezed so hard I stopped breathing. At that age, I cared little for art and had no connection with Jesus, but in that moment, I was so transfixed by this sculpture -- -how could it be so smooth?- --that I began to weep. Right there. Tears fell, and I thought I was having some kind of religious experience.
But it wasn't that. It was the combination of profound beauty and sadness at such an exquisite level that it left me no option other than to cry. I hadn't experienced anything like that again.
Until now.
This snowfall.
The beauty enveloping the sadness.
With the tears welling in my eyes, I think once again about death. The rainbow in the cornfield. It's all so gorgeous, and it's all so tragic. The extremes of human emotion and how ironic that thoughts of dying fill me with such life.
I'm still staring transfixed at the world outside when my father's voice resonates behind me.
'What a fuckhole of a mess out there.'
And the beauty is gone.
The sadness, however, remains.
[Rose Yates]”
―
“The past is a whore....The present is your mistress. The future is your only true love.
[Logan Yates]”
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[Logan Yates]”
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“When you get to my age, doing things that make one happy is far more important than doing things that make sense.
[Jackie Pearson]”
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[Jackie Pearson]”
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“...there's a rope still tethering me to social convention. The rope is well frayed and may only have the tensile strength of dental floss, but for now, it holds.
[Rose Yates]”
―
[Rose Yates]”
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“Distance is immeasurable. Only not as far as I want, but farther than I should.
I reach the point where I capitulate to reason and turn around. That's the hardest part of all. Making that decision to come back. How much easier to let the night take me, swallow and digest me, and excrete me into the afterworld.
[Rose Yates]”
―
I reach the point where I capitulate to reason and turn around. That's the hardest part of all. Making that decision to come back. How much easier to let the night take me, swallow and digest me, and excrete me into the afterworld.
[Rose Yates]”
―
“The more time Colin [Pearson] spent ruminating about the past and fearing the future, the more he realized there wasn't a damn thing to be done about either of them. Why, then, waste so much energy dwelling on both?
Perhaps that was the real puzzle to solve. How to be in the now. The here. Maybe owning the present was really the key to happiness.
Later, months later, Colin would remember this thought. He'd remember back to this specific moment.... This thought about dwelling on the past and the future he'd remember with equal doses of irony and pain. And then, when he was much, much older, with a sad and crushing acceptance. Only with this acceptance would he ever finally own the present.”
―
Perhaps that was the real puzzle to solve. How to be in the now. The here. Maybe owning the present was really the key to happiness.
Later, months later, Colin would remember this thought. He'd remember back to this specific moment.... This thought about dwelling on the past and the future he'd remember with equal doses of irony and pain. And then, when he was much, much older, with a sad and crushing acceptance. Only with this acceptance would he ever finally own the present.”
―
“Brilliant orange, yellow, and red leaves shed themselves and fall to the ground like memories, slowly fading to nothing.”
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