Tom Perrotta Quotes

Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us.

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.

Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.

Back then, when everybody thought the world would last forever, nobody had time for anything.

I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut.

I know very few writers who outline fully before they start. It just doesn't seem possible to do, because so many things don't come out until you're absolutely knee-deep in the world.

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

It's like the human race has been programmed for misery.

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

Because, really, what was worse than lying wide-awake in the dark, watching your life drip away, one irreplaceable minute after another?

I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

My wife and I left New York when she got pregnant - we just thought it would be really hard to stay in the city.

There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it.

If anything, he seemed a little lonely, all too ready to open his heart at the slightest sign of interst.

I no longer believe that just about everything is funny, if viewed from the proper angle.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

I was a garbage man in New Jersey in summers during college at Yale. Everybody else got to go to Switzerland and I got to go to the dump.

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.

He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.

My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.

It's not the cheating. It's the hunger for an alternative. The refusal to accept unhappiness.

It felt good, the whole family together on a sunny morning in a wholesome environment. If it hadn't been for the warshiping God part, he would have happily attended church on a regular basis.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

The interesting part about the writing process is that you can never see all the way to the end, not if something is happening over the course of a year and a half, or two years.

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

I did a lot of reading of the Bible and became fascinated with the idea of the Rapture. It's pretty wild. I hadn't heard of it until I was in college.

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

Quite a metaphor. The person in the most pain wins. Does that mean I get a Blue Ribbon?

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher, ' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

He knew for a fact that it was possible to fall and just keep falling.

I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom.

It’s a matter of dignity, ” the Chief explained. “At a certain point, that’s all you have left.

That’s why we get involved with other people, right? Not just for their bodies, but for everything else, too – their dreams and their scars and their stories.

I’m only human, she told herself. There’s not enough room in my heart for everyone.

These days he was like a zombie, all grim business, just another jerk with an erection.