The Nix Quotes

“It's no secret that most memoirs are really self-help books in disguise.”
― Nathan Hill

“Sometime we're so wrapped up in our own story that we don't see how we're supporting characters in someone else's.”
― Nathan Hill

“What Faye won't understand and may never understand is that there is not one true self hidden by many false ones. Rather, there is one true self hidden by many other true ones. Yes, she is the meek and shy and industrious student. Yes, she is the panicky and frightened child. Yes, she is the bold and impulsive seductress. Yes, she is the wife, the mother. And many other things as well. Her belief that one of these is true obscures the larger truth, which was ultimately the problem with the blind men and the elephant. It wasn't that they were blind - it's that they stopped too quickly, and so never knew there was a larger truth to grasp. ... Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Because one thing she’s learned through all this is that if a new beginning is really new; it will feel like a crisis. Any real change should make you feel, at first, afraid;”
― Nathan Hill

“He swears. He promises. One of these days will be the day that changes everything.”
― Nathan Hill

“Yes, he’d like to go back to that night and make a different decision. He’s like to erase these last several years-years that, as he sees them now, are long and indistinguishable, and monotonous and angry. Or maybe he’d go further back than that, back far enough to see Bishop again, to help him. Or to convince his mom not to leave. But even that wouldn’t be far enough to recover whatever it is he lost, whatever he sacrificed to his mother’s brutal influence, that real part of him that was buried when he started trying to please her. What kind of person would he have become had his instincts not been screaming at him that his mother was moments from leaving? Was he ever free of that weight? Was he ever authentically himself?

These are the questions you ask when you’re cracking up. When you suddenly recognize that not only are you living a life you never intended to lead but also you are feeling assaulted and punished by the life you have. You begin searching for those early wrong turns. What moment led you into the maze? You being thinking the entrance to the maze might also be the exit, and if you can identify the moment you screwed up then you can perform some huge course correction and save yourself.”
― Nathan Hill

“a trauma that breaks you into brand new pieces.”
― Nathan Hill

“She has never before given herself over to anyone-she'd always parceled herself out little by little. This bit for Samuel, some small part for her father, barely anything for Henry. She'd never put all of herself in just one place. It felt too risky. Because her great and constant fear all these years was that if anyone ever came to know all of her--the real her, the true deep essential Faye--they would not find enough stuff there to love. Hers was not a soul large enough to nourish another.”
― Nathan Hill

“Listen Samuel, really, voice of experience here? It's a terrible burden, being idealistic. It discolors everything you'll do later. It will haunt you constantly for all time as you become the inevitably cynical person the world requires you to be. Just give up on it now, the idealism, doing the right thing. Then you'll have nothing to regret later.”
― Nathan Hill