Tom Perrotta Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Thinking, People, Looks

  46 Copy quote

• 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.

  Tom Perrotta

  Thinking, Genius, World

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Thinking, Made

  Tom Perrotta (2006). “Joe College: A Novel”, p.48, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Motivational, Being Yourself

  9 Copy quote

• My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.

  Tom Perrotta

  Exciting, Novel, My Own

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, People, Choices

  Tom Perrotta (2007). “Little Children: A Novel”, p.8, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Tom Perrotta

  Writing, Expression, Directors

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Church, Together

  Tom Perrotta (2007). “Little Children: A Novel”, p.218, St. Martin's Press

  4 Copy quote

• From a distance, it makes perfect sense that the people and the things you think will save you are the very ones that have the power to disappoint you most bitterly, but up close it can hit you as a bewildering surprise.

  Tom Perrotta

  Life, Distance, Thinking

  Tom Perrotta (2006). “Joe College: A Novel”, p.263, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Silence, Littles

  "The Leftovers". Book by Tom Perrotta, August 30, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.

  Tom Perrotta

  Art, College, Instinct

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Breakup, Dark, Light

  "The Leftovers". Book by Tom Perrotta, August 30, 2011.

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Tom Perrotta

  Lost Love, School, Stories

  7 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Race, Misery, Humans

  "The Leftovers". Book by Tom Perrotta, August 30, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Cheating, Alternatives, Hunger

  Tom Perrotta (2013). “Little Children”, p.144, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Girl, Inspiration

  Tom Perrotta (2007). “Little Children: A Novel”, p.10, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Hurt, Pain, Mind

  "The Leftovers". Book by Tom Perrotta, August 30, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Broken, Forever, Invisible

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Tom Perrotta

  Summer, College, Men

  4 Copy quote

• You could say that this book is ripped from the headlines, but that wouldn't be fair. Bret Anthony Johnston's riveting novel picks up where the tabloids leave off, and takes us places even the best journalism can't go. Remember Me Like This is a wise, moving, and troubling novel about family and identity, and a clear-eyed inventory of loss and redemption.

  Tom Perrotta

  Wise, Book, Moving

  6 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Religious, Littles, Obsessed

  4 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Happened, Suburbs

  4 Copy quote

• I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.

  Tom Perrotta

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  New York, Cities, Wife

  4 Copy quote

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

  Tom Perrotta

  Teacher, Writing, Culture

  "The Exchange: Tom Perrotta" by Sarah Larson, www.newyorker.com. September 21, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

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