Patrick Somerville > Quotes

“I don't think of love in terms of relationships. It happens in terms of seconds, but it goes away like that, too. I pass a nurse, I love her, it ends when I go around a corner; at a restaurant I see a forlorn man at the table next to me, and I love him, and the conversation pulls me back, and it's ended. A patient comes in, and she is sick, and I love her, and then she dies, and I never see her again. This is what I live for. Don't think that it's sad.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“Human beings, you see, fall apart all the time. In many different ways. That is the central theme. There is no need to disguise it.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“I am a tea, he thought. I am some kind of tea. And I have wishes.”
― Patrick Somerville, Trouble: Stories

“In the end nothing matters but the work. You can’t control how it’s taken, and the act of telling a story always involves a gap. Sometimes confusion is the risk of ambiguity–I say that to students all the time. It’s true at the fireside and it’s true in the parlor, and it’s true in made-up towns and New York. Two humans face one another, words come out of one, words go into the other mind through the ears and eyes of the listener. It’s a story. It’s simple. The gap is the thing. Make sure you build the bridge.”
― Patrick Somerville

“Ululation. We got animals inside of us, man. We've got all this power.
- “The Son”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“A week goes by and I don't call Lucy or Dylan. I want to drift away from them - more than anything, I want to drift away. I sometimes imagine myself totally alone and I enjoy the feeling. And I mean something by alone, something more than the word holds. I mean something blank and pure and vacant, plus me. And also moral. This blank and pure vacancy that includes me that is also moral is so empty, it is so no one, that my presence in it makes me not exist, although I am still there, and that's what lifts all the weight.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“My heart was crazy now; it's too complicated to know what it was beating for, and how much of it was him and how much of it was the hunting - I think I cared about the deer that got shot - but it didn't matter then. Something was there and its source was irrelevant. It was so easy to feel nothing, all the time, and I held on as hard as I could, because the worst thing, I thought, now, would be for it to go away.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“Nobody, anywhere, has any real sense what is actually going on." This doesn't seem to get a very good reaction from the crowd - no doubt I'm scowling as I say it, but still. I continue: "I don't either, but at least I know I don't. I'm sorry but you people aren't like me." This is me trying to take the edge off. Being friendly. "You haven't done the shit I've done.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“I say, "My trigger is everything in the universe."
Everyone laughs.
I stare back at them, one by one. I hate it when I make people laugh. It's unintentional. I don't joke. To clear this up, I stare at Dr. Billy for a long time. Yes, like a threat.
"I know we sometimes feel that way," says Dr. Billy, after absorbing my look with his fat face. "Of course. But part of the exercise is to hone it down and get more specific."
"No," I say. "I'm being specific when I say that. Everything that exists, now, makes me angry. all. I don't know any other way to say it. all." I nod the last time I say "all"; I'm getting somewhere.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

“He nods, then squints across the room. "Not all those who wander are lost," he says. He's still squinting. I wonder if he's practiced this squint - a squint-stare off into the metaphysical distance. I'm realizing he's kind of handsome. But then again, it might just be that he cares about something.
"What is that?" I ask. "Did Jesus Christ say that?"
"No," he says. "Bilbo Baggins said that.”
― Patrick Somerville, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature