Quotes from Joshua Ferris

Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted , Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society.

Every night was a night of limitless possibility expired, of a life forfeited, of a foreclosed opportunity to expand, explore, risk, hope, and live.

I wished it had turned out differently. I wished I had been better all around. I wished above all that when I believed something, like that I was finally over her, that I knew myself even the slightest bit.

I never did anything on game night, even though I recorded the games and could always watch them later, because those nights were sacrosanct, and if I gave up the one sacrosanct thing, where would I be and what would I have?

Aren't you capable of finding anything beautiful in the world?" I'd tell her, she'd say, "I do not want to know about those websites. Please keep those disgusting websites to yourself.

what was life without appetite?

Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them?

If I could just become a lotioner, I thought, how many other small, pleasurable gestures made throughout the day might click into place for me, and all that exile, all that alienation and scorn, simply vanish?

Once again it occurred to me that so many of the things I could do in New York involved eating and drinking. Had we been placed here on earth to do nothing more than eat and drink?

The funny thing about work itself, it was so bearable. The dreariest task was perfectly bearable. It presented challenges to overcome, the distraction provided by a sense of urgency, and the things made work utterly, even harmoniously bearable.

There was a final reason I didn't want to have a kid. This one I never shared with Connie. I never seriously considered killing myself, but once you have a kid, you take that option off the table. And like I said, options are important.

Thousands of hours they've been up studying and highlighting Bible passages while I've been sleeping, or watching baseball, or abusing myself carnally on a recliner.

dentist is only half the doctor he claims to be. That he's also half mortician is the secret he keeps to himself. The ailing bits he tries to turn healthy again. The dead bits he just tries to make presentable. He bores a hole, clears the rot, fills the pit, and seals the hatch. He yanks the teeth, pours the mold, fits the fakes, and paints to match. Open cavities are the eye stones of skulls, and lone molars stand erect as tombstones.

I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you why I write at all.

In fact there was no such thing as a rumor. There was fact, and there was what did not come up in conversation.

Without monstrous distortions, I was slowly learning, without lies and hypocrisy, one cannot have the idealized American life I so longed for.

In the meantime, nothing sufficed, nothing was equal to the question, Why am I here?

Oh, come back, you people lost to darkness! Come back, you ghosts. The day is hard enough. Don't leave me alone with the night.

In the end, and done correctly, writing's just another pathology.

Intelligent people are not always guided by their intelligence.Sometimes fear is a little more powerful.

Technology would never advance past primal fear. It would never trump human instinct.

Ersatz Israel

Oh my god," she said out of the blue. "Can you believe it's only three-fifteen?

out. I was sure not only that everything worth doing had already been done while I was asleep but also that, now that I was awake, there was no longer anything worth doing.