Jonathan Tropper.This Is Where I Leave You.
p 9
I haven't seen her in a while, haven't returned her calls or stopped thinking about her. And here she is looking immaculate as ever in her clinging gym clothes, her hair an expensive shadeof honey blond, the corners of her mouth inching up ever so slightly into the tentative smile of a little girl. I know every one of Jen's smiles, what they mean and where they lead.
p 11
"I can't talk to you when you're like this," she finally says, stepping away from the car, winded.
"I'm always like this. This is how I am."
p 30
My life was in a free fall, and there was nowhere to turn. A cold sense of desolation lodged itself somewhere in the base of my throat, and suddenly I was no longer enraged or devastated, but terrified of the immense, throbbing loneliness that was only now closing like a vise on my internal organs.
p 39
Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.
p 67
I will look back at this time and see it as the start of a slow process that ends with me dying alone after living out my days in an empty apartment with only the television and a slow, waddling dog to keep me company, the kind of place that will smell stale to visitors, but not to me, since the stale thing will be me. And I can feel that miserable future hurtling toward me at high speed, thundering across the plains in a cloud of dust like a wildebeast stampede.
p 73
I shake my head. "It's just hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically fucked."
p 113
"And what's your story?"
She shrugs. "I don't have one. No great traumatic event to blme my small life on. No catastrophes, no divorce. Plenty of bad men, but plenty of good ons too, that simply didn't want me in the end. I tried to make something of myself and failed. That happens every day too."
p 137
It's an absurd request. Our minds, unedited by guilt or shame, are selfish and unkind, and the majority of our thoughts, at any given time, are not for public consumption, because they would either be hurtful or else just make us look like the selfish and unkind bastards we are. We don't share our thoughts, we share carefully sanitized, watered-down versions of them, Hollywood adaptations of those thoughts dumbed down for the PG-13 crowd.
p 230
The girl in last night's movie saw the way the sheepdog trainer carried his injured daughter and she just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nothing mattered more than being with him. She knew. But she wasn't a real person, that girl, she was an actress with an eating disorder who was charged with a DUI last year and who slept with her married director just long enough to wreck his ife before falling out of love and unreliable. I like Penny, and I still love Jen, and I hate Jen and I couldn't leave Penny's sad little apartment fast enough. I want someone who will love me and touch me and understand me and let me take care of them, but beyond that, I don't know.
p 255
And she has the added distinction of seeming to genuinely like me. Sometimes, contentment is a matter of will. You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it.
p 292
"You deserve better than him. I love him, but that's the truth."
"You know what's sad?"
"What?"
She smiles a little and turns her face up to the sky. "He really does love me. In his heart, he wants to be the man I need. It's just not in him."
p 293
Tracy turns to face me. "You got married right out of college. You're terrified of being alone. Anything you do now will be motivated by that fear. You have to stop worrying about finding love again. It will come when it comes. Get comfortable with being alone It will empower you."
p 295
He smiles weakly and bends down to wrap the blanket around his waist. Horry's got the kind of abs you want, the kind that ripple and flex effortlessly under his skin. Looking at him, you can't help but be reminded of who he used to be, who he should be now. We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.
p 338
I want very badly to be in love again, which is why I'm in no position to look for it. But I hope I'll know it when it comes. My father's watch jingles loosely on my wrist, my mother's words resting unseen on my skin. YOU FOUND ME. It gives me hope.
I haven't seen her in a while, haven't returned her calls or stopped thinking about her. And here she is looking immaculate as ever in her clinging gym clothes, her hair an expensive shadeof honey blond, the corners of her mouth inching up ever so slightly into the tentative smile of a little girl. I know every one of Jen's smiles, what they mean and where they lead.
p 11
"I can't talk to you when you're like this," she finally says, stepping away from the car, winded.
"I'm always like this. This is how I am."
p 30
My life was in a free fall, and there was nowhere to turn. A cold sense of desolation lodged itself somewhere in the base of my throat, and suddenly I was no longer enraged or devastated, but terrified of the immense, throbbing loneliness that was only now closing like a vise on my internal organs.
p 39
Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.
p 67
I will look back at this time and see it as the start of a slow process that ends with me dying alone after living out my days in an empty apartment with only the television and a slow, waddling dog to keep me company, the kind of place that will smell stale to visitors, but not to me, since the stale thing will be me. And I can feel that miserable future hurtling toward me at high speed, thundering across the plains in a cloud of dust like a wildebeast stampede.
p 73
I shake my head. "It's just hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically fucked."
p 113
"And what's your story?"
She shrugs. "I don't have one. No great traumatic event to blme my small life on. No catastrophes, no divorce. Plenty of bad men, but plenty of good ons too, that simply didn't want me in the end. I tried to make something of myself and failed. That happens every day too."
p 137
It's an absurd request. Our minds, unedited by guilt or shame, are selfish and unkind, and the majority of our thoughts, at any given time, are not for public consumption, because they would either be hurtful or else just make us look like the selfish and unkind bastards we are. We don't share our thoughts, we share carefully sanitized, watered-down versions of them, Hollywood adaptations of those thoughts dumbed down for the PG-13 crowd.
p 230
The girl in last night's movie saw the way the sheepdog trainer carried his injured daughter and she just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nothing mattered more than being with him. She knew. But she wasn't a real person, that girl, she was an actress with an eating disorder who was charged with a DUI last year and who slept with her married director just long enough to wreck his ife before falling out of love and unreliable. I like Penny, and I still love Jen, and I hate Jen and I couldn't leave Penny's sad little apartment fast enough. I want someone who will love me and touch me and understand me and let me take care of them, but beyond that, I don't know.
p 255
And she has the added distinction of seeming to genuinely like me. Sometimes, contentment is a matter of will. You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it.
p 292
"You deserve better than him. I love him, but that's the truth."
"You know what's sad?"
"What?"
She smiles a little and turns her face up to the sky. "He really does love me. In his heart, he wants to be the man I need. It's just not in him."
p 293
Tracy turns to face me. "You got married right out of college. You're terrified of being alone. Anything you do now will be motivated by that fear. You have to stop worrying about finding love again. It will come when it comes. Get comfortable with being alone It will empower you."
p 295
He smiles weakly and bends down to wrap the blanket around his waist. Horry's got the kind of abs you want, the kind that ripple and flex effortlessly under his skin. Looking at him, you can't help but be reminded of who he used to be, who he should be now. We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.
p 338
I want very badly to be in love again, which is why I'm in no position to look for it. But I hope I'll know it when it comes. My father's watch jingles loosely on my wrist, my mother's words resting unseen on my skin. YOU FOUND ME. It gives me hope.