Quotes from Tom Perrotta

the world she'd been raised to live in no longer existed.

NO SHOES? WE LOVE YOU!

Just a dead kid in the park, one more sign that the world had lost its mind.

It was going to be awkward, though, seeing him again at the ceremony, listening to him make a speech that would undoubtedly be witty and touching, but would omit the essential truth, which was that they'd loved each other for a while, and then he'd broken her heart.

Not boots, not shoes, not sneakers, not even Tevas—

And then, Lance walked out on her right after the holidays, no warning at all, unless you count years of unhappiness as a warning.

Wherever he was, he was onto something else, growing up without her, leaving her more alone than she already was.

an empty desk in the second row, a memorial to the girl who used to sit there.

oddly emphatic, as if she'd been waiting all day for a chance to discuss the weather.

a girl from his English class who'd overdosed on sleeping pills after learning of the disappearance of her identical twin.

It's a bad dream: my English teacher is standing naked at the foot of this slightly lumpy bed, clutching a pair of not-quite-white underpants in his hand, studying me with this creepy look on his face, the one he gets when he's reading aloud in class and wants us to think he's moved by the passage.

found him stabbing his paperback edition with a steak knife, the tip of the blade penetrating the cover and sinking far enough down into the early chapters

Done properly, she said, cunnilingus and fellatio should be more pleasant, and a lot cleaner, than kissing a toilet seat. I hope that answers your question.

And later, of course, she got too busy. She asks Royce if he heard anything from Grace, ever. "No. No. Why should I?" "I just thought." "No." "I thought you might have looked her up later on." "Not a good idea." She has disappointed him. Prying. Trying to get at some spot of live regret right under the ribs. A woman.

I try not to think too much about those days now—let the past be past. The truth is, we're all prisoners of our historical context. Anybody who says morality is absolute, that right and wrong don't change over time, you know what? They just haven't lived long enough.

Your poor lungs." "We're not gonna live long enough to get cancer. The Bible says there's just seven years of Tribulation after the Rapture.

Laurie herself was more focused on the years when her kids were little, when she felt so necessary and purposeful, a battery all charged up with love. Every day she used it up and every night it got miraculously replenished. Nothing had ever been as good as that.

Here's why at the Jesus beds they can only talk about all the stupid shit they've done—because that's all they are now, all they're ever gonna be, a twitching bunch of memories and mistakes. Regrets. Jesus, Bit thinks. I should've had the decency to go when Julie did.

I was supposed to have a son.

WE ARE MEMBERS OF THE GUILTY REMNANT. WE HAVE TAKEN A VOW OF SILENCE. WE STAND BEFORE YOU AS LIVING REMINDERS OF GOD'S AWESOME POWER. HIS JUDGMENT IS UPON US.

blissfully unaware of the beautiful tradition they'd been chosen to uphold.

thinking how good it was to be free, away from the baby and from Tom, too, the two people who couldn't help reminding her of everything that had gone wrong, and what a fool she'd been.

Sharon had moved to Springdale in November of our senior year. She just appeared out of nowhere in four of my classes…I couldn't stop staring at her. I had this weird feeling she was going to be important.

Quite a metaphor. The person in the most pain wins. Does that mean I get a Blue Ribbon?