Tom Perrotta Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

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

Tom Perrotta
He'd never had to make the adjustments and compromises other people accepted early in their romantic careers; never had a chance to learn the lesson that Sarah taught him everyday—that beauty was only a part of it, and not even the most important part, that there were transactions between people that occurred on some mysterious level beneath the skin, or maybe even beyond the body.

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

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

Tom Perrotta
Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault.

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

Tom Perrotta
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.

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

Tom Perrotta
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.

Tom Perrotta
They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.

Tom Perrotta
To this day, she's still sad. Because there's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I'm just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And it didn't hurt me at all.

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

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

Tom Perrotta
After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they'd actually made some sort of choice.

Tom Perrotta
She would be a mentor and an inspiration to girls like herself, the quiet ones who'd sleepwalked their way through high school, knowing nothing except that they couldn't possibly be happy with any of the choices the world seemed to be offering them.

Tom Perrotta