Matthew Quick

"Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly."

"There's a lot for you to live for. Good things are definitely in your future, Leonard. I'm sure of it. You have no idea how many interesting people you'll meet after high school's over. Your life partner, your best friend, the most wonderful person you'll ever know is sitting in some high school right now waiting to graduate and walk into your life - maybe even feeling all the same things you are, maybe even wondering about you, hoping that you're strong enough to make it to the future where you'll meet."

"The whole time I pretend I have mental telepathy. And with my mind only, I’ll say — or think? — to the target, 'Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a rollercoaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never evenheard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smellsto be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to thatmiserable place you go every day. Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. That’s what they tell us at school, but if you keep getting on that train and going to the place you hate I’m going to start thinking the people at school are liars like the Nazis who told the Jews they were just being relocated to work factories. Don’t do that to us. Tell us the truth. If adulthood is working some death-camp job you hate for the rest of your life, divorcing your secretly criminal husband, being disappointed in your son, being stressed and miserable, and dating a poser and pretending he’s a hero when he’s really a lousy person and anyone can tell that just by shaking his slimy hand — if it doesn’t get any better, I need to know right now. Just tell me. Spare me from some awful fucking fate. Please."

"The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves."

"When I was in high school, I used to have breakfast with my grandpa every morning. He instilled a lot of values in me: hard work, loyalty. He grew up during the Great Depression in Philly in poverty - he didn't have enough to eat as a kid. Sometimes his family would get kicked out of their apartment because they couldn't pay the rent."

"You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life"

"I’m a screwed-up person who no longerknows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I told you in my letter."

"... Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9"

"Why would god allow the Holocaust to happen? If god made everything, why did he invent sin to trick us and then hold our sins against us? Why are there so many religions in the world if god created the world and wants us to be Christian? Why does god allow people to fight wars over him? What if you were born in a different culture and never even heard of Jesus Christ—would god send you to hell for not being Christian? And if so, do you believe that's fair? Why are men always the leaders in your church? Aren't women capable of leading too? Isn't such a patriarchal system sexist in this day and age? Why do so many babies die? Why are there so many poor people in the world? Did Jesus visit any other planets in distant unknown universes?"