Holly Brickley > Quotes

“Instead of sleeping that night I revised my end of the conversation in my head over and over, a lifelong pastime I always rationalized as productive since the lessons could apply to future interactions, though that never seemed to happen.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I personally like to pretend the phrase “deep cut” has a totally different meaning, one that has nothing to do with anyone else’s opinion. How deep does it cut? How close to the bone? How long do you feel it?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I think songs gave me a window into a magical life,” I said. “Something bigger, or whatever, waiting out there. And I felt like the only way to get there was through the songs. Like the songs, if I listened hard enough, would show me how to get it right.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Decades later, in a magazine I bought from a garage sale as a teenager, Tori Amos said she would've given her arm to have written "A Case of You." I'm always struck by this notion. Any writer who's ever been warned off a man wishes they'd written "A Case of You." But what inspires this particular compliment, this feeling of not just loving a song, or any work of art, but longing to have created it yourself? It happens when you identify so intensely with the work it feels wrong somehow - sad, almost- that is didn't come from your own brain. Like if you had arrived at this expression yourself, you would have more effectively metastasized the emotions that made you love the song so much.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“how many different ways is it even possible for the same two people to break each other’s hearts?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Honestly, how many different ways is it even possible for the same two people to break each other’s hearts?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I will always be inspired by you, even when you tell me not to be," he said.
"And I will always be critical of you too. I can't stand it when you don't live up to your talent."
"And I will always be destroyed by your critism.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“He leaned forward suddenly, moved his knees so they parted mine. “Come over,” he said. “I want to suffer you.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“...music inhabits and shapes every part of the life, not just emotional but physical too. This is not something that happens with other art forms, no? One does not typically read books or observe an abstract canvas while dancing or having sex—we can only think about them while doing these things, which is not the same because the art is not as present.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Percy, have you ever noticed that talking to most people is boring? Easier than this, but boring?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Just forgive yourself, it’s too exhausting not to.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Good for him,” she said, still concentrating on the dirt. “I do think these things are easier for men.” I stared at the back of her head. She was right, of course. “Boys are less afraid of being wrong,” I said. It was a line from My So-Called Life—she wouldn’t remember, though we’d watched that episode together in high school: the sensitive redhead observing the boys in her classroom as they shouted dumb guesses at the teacher. This was why men got to run the world, even as it became slowly obvious they were terrible at it. But who was molding all these chickenshit daughters?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Her worst brought out the best in him, but she wanted it better. And every time she found perfection, he was always better.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Have you been judging my commas all this time, in emails and stuff?” “No,” I said, but he looked away, wounded. Of course I’d judged his commas; his commas were like gnats that crawled onto the screen and settled in random corners of his sentences.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“That’s why the song was so short, I decided—because connection, like memories, came in the briefest of flashes.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“that endless game of trying to be heard without accidentally saying too much—of daring to express an emotion that might be subject to change, to a man who just wants you to service his parts.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“They didn't know they were the best friends I'd ever had. How can you tell that to people you've known only for a few months without sounding pathetic?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“A perfect song has stronger bones. Lyrics, chords, melody. It can be played differently, produced differently, and it will almost always be great.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“No matter how much she smiles or claps, her eyes harden when he sings. She wants to be the only one. She wants him as her deep cut, a B-side unearthed from a rarities bin, proof of her own specialness because she's the one who discovered it, because she doesn't know how to sing her own damn song.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I know you deserve the glory, Joe,' I said finally, quietly.
'But it still makes you mad.'
'It does,' I admitted. 'And jealous. I can't help that. The jealousy was what tipped me over the edge that night at the wedding. It was always there. I will always be jealous of you.'
'Fine. I will always be inspired by you, even when you tell me not to be,' he said.
'And I will always be critical of you too. I can't stand it when you don't live up to your talent.'
'And I will always be destroyed by your criticism.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I could live on the way that music made me feel, its endless unfurling of emotion and possibility, like a private magic carpet.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“You’re too busy editing to write; no wonder you didn’t finish a single page all summer. You’re obsessive about inconsequential things, like song lyrics, and dismissive of things that matter, like food and sleep and other people’s feelings.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“They were soulful and comfortable and had all the amenities that actually make people happy, like porches and window seats, and none of the things we believed make us happy, like open-floor plans and living rooms”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“ooooh he’s making you blame yourself! like a republican!”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“Living in New York made you feel heavy and lonely but full of promise.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I know that I want children. It makes me feel like a monster.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“He sent out a large stream of smoke, still nodding, and held the cigarette up to share. I took it for the intimacy, for the moment when my fingers ran up along the backs of his. He turned up the volume until it felt like the whole porch was swallowed in the atmosphere of the song, teetering amid the shuffling brush-drumming and bending guitar notes. The lyrics were about music's almost supernatural power to make you feel, but only at the whims of memory and experience: a song never made the narrator happy until he danced to it with her, and now when he hears it, much later, it makes him lonely. I had the sense of my own memory packaging up this moment, absorbing and capturing its every element: the cold smoky air, the side of his leg against mine, the feel of his knuckles under my fingertips.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“personally like to pretend the phrase “deep cut” has a totally different meaning, one that has nothing to do with anyone else’s opinion. How deep does it cut? How close to the bone?”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“What he tastes like. You’re such a foodie.” He shuddered. “Sorry,” I said. The term had only recently gained popularity; it was my first time using it. “It does reek of class, doesn’t it?” “Indeed. And of restaurant-as-sport. Of appropriating food as a hobby when you have found, in your thirties, that you have none.” I laughed. “Is that so bad?” “No. It’s just not me.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts

“I will always be inspired by you, even when you tell me not to be," he said.
"And I will always be critical of you too. I ccan't stand it when you don't live up to your talent."
"And I will always be destroyed by your critism.”
― Holly Brickley, Deep Cuts