Matthew Norman > Quotes

“I instantly like people who laugh at my jokes. It's a weakness of mine.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“The captain of a ship can run a great ship, but he can't do anything about the tides.”
― Matthew Norman 2, Domestic Violets

“We’re all damaged. Every single beautiful, stupid, precious one of us. Damaged, damaged, damaged.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“When you're having sex again, it makes you wonder why you weren't before. What could possibly have been bad enough to make you stop doing THAT?”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“That’s the thing I hate most about my brain, the way it stores and catalogs things, all this dumb shit on a giant hard drive in my head, so I’m forced to obsess over it all like a crazy person.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“Remember that string of movies when we were younger, like mid ’90s? The ones where the nerdy girl finally puts on makeup and a Wonderbra and everyone realizes how totally boneable she is?” “Yeah.” “Well, that’s you,” she says. “We’re in one of those movies. You’re my hopeless teenage girl, all stuck in your shell, and I’m here to give you a fresh coat of makeup and a slutty dress. Push those boobies up, Andy Carter, it’s go time.” “Do”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“Power means never having to say you're sorry.”
― Matthew Norman

“Parenting is mostly bribery . . . and yelling.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“They didn’t hate her when you were in high school. They made fun of her. She was the butt of jokes. But they didn’t hate her. That’s what people do now. They don’t disagree, they hate.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“Maybe that’s just what moving on is, not getting over, but skipping over. And”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“We hold on to the shitty things the tightest, for some reason. And”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“The lesson here . . . Sometimes people throw things away. That doesn’t mean those things aren’t really, really good. Most of the time, it just means that person didn’t know what they had.” I’m”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“You look good," I tell my reflection. "Hot?" But this last part comes out with a question mark at the end. I've never been good at sales.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I think you'll be a great teacher," said Gary. That's his role in my life: blind encourager and ambassador of false senses of security.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“So much of marriage is spent only half paying attention to each other. Talking while driving. Talking while watching Netflix. Talking while staring at a toddler, or scanning utility bills or catalogs from the mail or Evites for some distant weekend.”
― Matthew Norman, Last Couple Standing

“She technically apologized yesterday, but it was one of those married-people apologies, more of a tactical move than anything else, a way of moving on with things.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Right when you find yourself not thinking about her at all, there she’ll be, right at the end of the story to fuck with your head one last time.” She”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“If my penis were a writer/director, it would be Woody Allen - small, neurotic, and, frankly, hit or miss.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Then we lapse into silence. It's these silences that do damage, that reveal glimpses of the distressed foundation struggling under the weight of things.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“The most important people in this man's life - the people who have mattered to him most - aren't my Mother or his wives or me or Anna or Allie. The people who matter most are the people in his head. That is loneliness.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Sometimes in life, it doesn’t matter that you’ve just woken up on a floor. Or that you haven’t brushed your teeth. Or that your hair is a mess and you’re wearing the clothes you slept in. Sometimes you just have to be polite.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“I don't think -" I begin, but then I stop there. Strangely enough, this sounds like a full, declarative sentence, as if I'm standing in a bar shouting out one of my most obvious character flaws. I don't think!”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it's perfectly normal that she hasn't spoken in hours.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Daughters,” he says. “You raise them and watch them grow up, and you love them so much it makes you crazy. Then one day some guy shows up. Maybe he’s nice. Maybe he’s got a good job. Maybe he’s got his shirt tucked in and he calls you sir. But he’s never quite what you’re hoping for. If you have one someday—a daughter, I mean—you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“In my experience, Fox News isn’t something you can tune out, like a game show or a cable movie you’ve seen a dozen times. The colors, the moving logos, the giant fonts, the . . . well . . . the things they actually say. It’s like the television equivalent of one of those cymbal-banging monkey toys being duct-taped to your forehead. So this is how it’d go. I’d hear something ridiculous, and I’d scoff or make some smart-ass comment, and then it’d be straight downhill from there.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“Do you ever stop talking?” I say. “Seriously, it’s like you have a superarticulate form of Tourette syndrome.”
― Matthew Norman, We're All Damaged

“How are you so fast? Your legs are half as long as mine!” “I’m a liberal American woman”
― Matthew Norman, Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon

“If a car can represent something, this one represents contradiction. For most of his life, my dad has been able to have any woman he wants. In response, he’s gone through as many as possible, betraying each for someone younger and more absurd. Conversely, for most of his life he’s been able to have any car he wants, too. In response, he’s remained married to this, a 1982 Porsche with a tricky clutch.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Anna is the sort of woman who writers write about, Tom. Somewhere in the third act, women like her save characters like you and me from ourselves. She's the loveliest literary device in the world.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“How are you so fast? Your legs are half as long as mine!”
“I’m a liberal American woman, Henry! I'm fueled by rage!”
― Matthew Norman, Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon