Rob Delaney > Quotes

“Whenever someone tells me they’re expecting their first baby and they’re nervous, I tell them the following: “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful. I am so happy for you. Listen, of course you’re nervous but here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“Children give terrible gifts because they are poor.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“My favorite historical response to someone hearing about a “big” death comes from the character Henry Clerval in Mary Shelley’s masterwork, Frankenstein. When Henry learns that his best friend Victor Frankenstein’s young brother William has been murdered, he says, “I can offer you no consolation, my friend. Your disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do?” Perfect. There is no consolation. The disaster is irreparable. I’ve read Frankenstein twice since our Henry died. It is my companion in grief. It should surprise no one who reads it that Mary Shelley was a bereaved mother.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“If you ask someone out and they say no, try it again in a few minutes wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“There is no physical paradise where he’s waiting for me, and for that I’m glad. I have to imagine that would get boring after a couple of centuries, for him, for me. For you. Rather, I suspect I am a glass of water, and when I die, the contents of my glass will be poured into the same vast ocean that Henry’s glass was poured into, and we will mingle together forever. We won’t know who’s who. And you’ll get poured in there one day, too.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“One thing that fucked me up badly was losing the callouses that built up on my fingers from operating his suction machine… After Henry died, those callouses began to fade away. I hated that. I hated it so much. Please let me have my little hard bumps on my fingers that I can rub and think of him. They reminded me of helping him breathe, which it was my privilege to do. I could touch them and know they were there because of him. They told me that I loved him and he needed me and that he was real.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“The growing number of politicians and newspaper-owners who aim to privatise the NHS need to fuck off ten times, then gargle a big bowl of diarrhoea. I pray that Vishnu purifies your heart in a dream tonight, or, failing that, that you fall down a deep well in February.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“In between Henry's birth and his death was, of course, his life. That was my favorite part.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“People who concern themselves with the rights of other adults who engage in consensual acts involving sex, love, and/or eating croissants together are damaged and in pain.”
― Rob Delaney

“If you’re reading this and work in private insurance or the American government, fuck off and fuck you, forever. In the words of David Lynch, “Fix your hearts or die.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“I became a diligent condom carrier and when most subsequent lovers had the good fortune to lie under my grunting, sweaty mass, they were always the grimacing recipient of an eager and rubber-sheathed penis boner.”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“Cheesecake. Are you shitting me? Who invented that? Probably Jesus of Nazareth. Or maybe Louis Pasteur. It makes me physically sick to think that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, yet the name of the inventor of cheesecake isn’t tattooed on Dick Cheney’s face.”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“Reflecting on his physical therapy reminds me that I’m not a fan of the “fighting” metaphor for cancer. I don’t think you fight it, or beat it. The effort I saw Henry expend, again and again, at the age of one, under such duress, suggests someone who could beat anything that can be beaten. Cancer’s pretty much going to do what it wants. Should it come for me, I hope I’ll just ride the wave.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“Make it easier for your citizens to be healthy and smart and they will save you in ways you have yet to imagine. Make it difficult and your nation will swirl history’s toilet on its way to hell.”
― Rob Delaney

“I must confess I now find it difficult to truly and fully relax around people who haven’t had some significant tragedy and pain in their lives. Just another one of the many things that make me a fun hang.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“Cats probably wouldn't need 9 lives if they wore tiny little helmets and didn't smoke cigarettes.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“I think it's important to explain that major depression is not even peripherally related to "sadness". Depression is the absence of emotion. I never cried during my darkest periods of depression. Crying would have been A HOLIDAY. It would have been FUCKING CHRISTMAS. A fight or a feeling of anger would have been AN EASTER EGG HUNT AT DISNEYLAND. I am vocal about my depression now because it was so fucking Satanically awful that I view it as one my life's primary missions to help other people understand and overcome it.

Depression kills people because in the normal weather patterns of human emotion over a day or a week or a decade, actual unipolar major depressive disorder doesn't appear. It's like The Nothing in The NeverEnding Story. It eats your anger, your sadness, your happiness, your testicle and/or ovaries.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“A heart that hurts is a heart that works.” —Juliana Hatfield ”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“Whenever someone tells me they’re expecting their first baby and they’re nervous, I tell them the following: “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful. I am so happy for you. Listen, of course you’re nervous but here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that. There is no warm-up version. You are about to know joy that will blow your fucking mind apart. Happiness before this? HA HA. Mystery? LOL. Wonder? Fuck off! You are about to see something magical and new that you have no map for! None! This is it. Are you ready for that? Are you? No! No, you’re not! Also, please let me babysit when you’re finally ready to let someone else hold your beautiful little nugget! First time’s free, second time is eighteen bucks an hour.” This speech is particularly good for dads-to-be, since they’re usually more nervous than the moms-to-be.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“IT IS SO CURIOUS how hearing something once in your youth can dictate a thought pattern all the way through your life. I was nine, a man said something nonchalantly, and now when I see a slate at age thirty-six, as far as I'm concerned, its primary use is for beheading boys. Once that's done it can be used for roofing.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“I was basically trucking along as a functional drunk who knew he had a problem but hoped nothing truly terrible would happen.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“I felt like I was being asked to find an individual lentil in a warehouse that a tornado had just torn through”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“Grandfathers are supposed to get tumors and die! That’s their job! What kind of shitty-ass grandfather isn’t walking around loaded with tumors? Not one I want to meet. Grandparent deaths are like practice deaths, a step above pet deaths, to help you have the barest preparation for a truly painful death. And this guy’s grandfather didn’t even have the decency to die! What a pair of assholes.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“In the ambiguity and shifting playing field of adult life, I often wish I could just fill in a dot and have someone say “Yes” and hand me a chicken leg, or “No” and slap me with an old fish.”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“Everything happens for a reason,” can fuck off to a frigid cave, I am more than willing to extend my feelings around birth on to death, the other big thing we all get to do. We don’t know what will happen and it’s not our job to know. Just go for the ride, baby! If it weren’t cool, (literally) everyone wouldn’t be doing it. Death is a bridge. And just like a little baby coming into the world brings with it a secret parcel of knowledge you can’t get anywhere else, you’ll only get to know what’s on the other side of that bridge when you’re ready (and dead).”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“I will never see Henry again. There is no physical paradise where he’s waiting for me, and for that I’m glad. I have to imagine that would get boring after a couple of centuries, for him, for me. For you. Rather, I suspect I am a glass of water, and when I die, the contents of my glass will be poured into the same vast ocean that Henry’s glass was poured into, and we will mingle together forever. We won’t know who’s who. And you’ll get poured in there one day, too.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“To help safeguard her, I remained a vigilant bather and hand-washer. I also made sure we didn't share cups or utensils and I took strict care not to poo in her mouth, even at night.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“Grief drove a bus through the part of my brain where memories are stored.”
― Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works

“I looked out over a sleepy, twinkling Manhattan as I plummeted into the night. It was wonderful and visceral, like my mind and body were violently wiped clean and rebooted to take in the majesty of the experience.”
― Rob Delaney, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“A few days after my microwave experiment, I was sitting in class and felt a gentle “pop” on my forehead and hot liquid ran down my face. It was the burn on my forehead just tenderly exploding, of its own volition, on my eleven-year-old face. As the pus—filled with healing white blood cells—trickled down my face, I thought, “I deserve this.”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.