David Rakoff Quotes

• Not being funny doesn't make you a bad person. Not having a sense of humor does.

  David Rakoff

  Doe, Sense Of Humor, Persons

  David Rakoff (2002). “Fraud: Essays”, p.103, Anchor

  51 Copy quote

• I am no fun at all. In fact, I am anti-fun. Not as in anti-violence, but as in anti-matter. I am not so much against fun - although I suppose I kind of am - as I am the opposite of fun. I suck the fun out of a room. Or perhaps I'm just a different kind of fun; the kind that leaves on bereft of hope; the kind of fun that ends in tears.

  David Rakoff

  Fun, Opposites, Tears

  16 Copy quote

• We’re creatures of contact regardless of whether/ we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.

  David Rakoff

  Kissing, Together, Contact

  11 Copy quote

• People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?

  David Rakoff

  Forgiveness, People, Giving

  David Rakoff (2010). “Half Empty”, p.217, Anchor

  13 Copy quote

• Is there some lesson on how to be friends? I think what it means is that central to living a life that is good is a life that's forgiving. We're creatures of contact regardless of whether we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together. Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more-- since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore. So we make ourselves open while knowing full well it's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell.

  David Rakoff

  Lonely, Mean, Kissing

  FaceBook post by David Rakoff from Nov 09, 2015

  8 Copy quote

• Everybody's got something. In the end, what choice does one really have but to understand that truth, to really take it in, and then shop for groceries, get a haircut, do one's work; get on with the business of one's life. That's the hope, anyway.

  David Rakoff

  Choices, Doe, Groceries

  12 Copy quote

• Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

  David Rakoff

  Hate, Book, Love Is

  David Rakoff (2013). “Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel”, p.94, Doubleday

  13 Copy quote

• Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up.

  David Rakoff

  Writing, Guarantees That, Easier

  FaceBook post by David Rakoff from Apr 22, 2013

  38 Copy quote

• What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened? If you don't have your experiences in the moment, if you gloss them over with jokes or zoom past them, you end up with curiously dispassionate memories.

  David Rakoff

  Memories, Past, Zoom

  FaceBook post by David Rakoff from Mar 05, 2017

  26 Copy quote

• Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.

  David Rakoff

  Thinking, Shoes, Might

  David Rakoff (2002). “Fraud: Essays”, p.8, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

• The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.

  David Rakoff

  Lonely, Art, Opposites

  FaceBook post by David Rakoff from Oct 23, 2016

  18 Copy quote

• There is supercomputer somewhere in the Nevada desert whose sole function is to count the number of times that I have said the following, because it is unquantifiable by human minds at this point, but this time it’s really true: I should have stayed home.

  David Rakoff

  Regret, Home, Numbers

  5 Copy quote

• I have managed to establish an identity that is based on my internal self, and for that I feel tremendously lucky.

  David Rakoff

  Self, Identity, Lucky

  David Rakoff (2015). “The Uncollected David Rakoff: Including the entire text of Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish”, p.164, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

• I find life itself provides ample and sufficient tests of my valor and mettle: illness; betrayal; fruitless searches for love; working for the abusive, the insane, and the despotic. All challenges easily as thrilling to me as scrambling over icy rock in a pair of barely adequate boots.

  David Rakoff

  Betrayal, Rocks, Challenges

  David Rakoff (2002). “Fraud: Essays”, p.20, Anchor

  6 Copy quote

• If psychoanalysis was late 19th century secular Judaism’s way of finding spiritual meaning in a post-religious world, and retail is the late 20th century’s way of finding spiritual meaning in a post-religious world, what does it mean that I’m impersonating the father of psychoanalysis in a store window to commemorate a religious holiday?

  David Rakoff

  Spiritual, Religious, Father

  5 Copy quote

• There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.

  David Rakoff

  Sadness, Cleansing, Reassuring

  David Rakoff (2010). “Half Empty”, p.198, Anchor

  10 Copy quote

• Youth is not wasted on the young, it is perpetrated on the young.

  David Rakoff

  Youth, Young

  David Rakoff (2002). “Fraud: Essays”, p.30, Anchor

  8 Copy quote

• Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

  David Rakoff

  Innate, Flipped, Altruism

  "Altruism: Better Late Than Never" by Paula Gardner, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 28, 2016.

  21 Copy quote

• I have so little control over the act of writing that it's all I can do to remain conscious.

  David Rakoff

  Writing, Littles, Conscious

  4 Copy quote

• Almost any age is better than twenty-two.

  David Rakoff

  Two, Age, Twenties

  5 Copy quote

• In my brief glimpse of what is to come I realize how little I care to witness it. I have seen the future and I'm fairly relieved to say, it looks nothing like me.

  David Rakoff

  Future, Glimpse, Looks

  David Rakoff (2005). “Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems”, p.222, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

• Unfortunately, there's no greater rhyme or reason as to why it would be me. And since there is no answer as to why me, it's not a question I feel really entitled to ask.

  David Rakoff

  Would Be, Answers, Why Me

  7 Copy quote

• But if one's dreams having to come true was the only referendum on whether they were beautiful, or worth dreaming, well then, no one would wish for anything. And that would be so much sadder.

  David Rakoff

  Beautiful, Dream, Wish

  7 Copy quote

• Central to living a life that is good, is a life that's forgiving.

  David Rakoff

  Generosity, Forgiving

  8 Copy quote

• In the window, I fantasize... about providing grown-ups and children alike with the greatest gift of all: insight.

  David Rakoff

  Children, Window, Insight

  6 Copy quote

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