Tom Perrotta Quotes

Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her.

~ Tom Perrotta

I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make them important to the people who love them is that there’s always another perspective.

~ Tom Perrotta

Nora had been training herself not to think too much about her kids. Not because she wanted to forget them - not at all - but because she wanted to remember them more accurately. For the same reason, she tried not to look too often at old photographs or videos...After a while, these scraps hardened into a kind of official narrative that crowded out thousands of equally valid memories, shunting the losers to some cluttered basement storage area in her brain.

~ 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

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

~ Tom Perrotta

Next time she’d have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy’s face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some terrible mystery had just been solved.

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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.

~ 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

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.

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ 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

Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for the next generation. While the university's busy exploiting you for cheap labor, you somehow have to produce a boring thesis that no one will read, and find someone willing to publish it as a book. And then, if you're unsually talented and extraordinarily lucky, you just might be able to secure a one-year, nonrenewable appointment teaching remedial composition to football players in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Internet's booming, and the kids we gave C pluses to are waltzing out of college and getting rich on stock options while we bust our asses for a pathetic stipend that doesn't even cover the rent.

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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

~ Tom Perrotta

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.

~ Tom Perrotta