Quotes from Tiffanie DeBartolo

the look on his face was one of absolute, perfect joy—the kind of joy that can't be reproached, stolen, or marred—the kind that only the innocent or the ignorant are capable of experiencing.

How many times in your life are you allowed to say, "If only…?

It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living.

I feel like we grew in the same womb or something. Like we've been connected from the beginning by blood and veins. Siamese soul lovers, if there could ever be such a thing.

Standing off to the side, stage left, I backed up, parked myself on a crate, and squeezed my knees together. The louder the music got, the harder the crate vibrated. It was like having sex with Paul's spirit until his body could step in and finish the job.

I wanted to freeze the moment. Freeze it and jump inside of it and stay there until it melted into the warm, swishy liquid of happy memories.

Eliza, you can't judge a man solely on his actions. Sometimes actions are nothing more than reactions.

I don't know anything," she said. "Except that desperation and fear make a person do really stupid things.

I'd be happy to give special treatment to a dedicated school teacher, or even someone like William Faulkner if he was still alive, because despite the fact that an exegesis of his prose completely eluded me, I had to admit, especially when Jacob held me down and made me say it, that the guy was a kick-ass architect of the ever-elusive sentence.

Why are the ones who need the most shelter always the ones left out in the rain?

Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she's moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn't that the goddamn definition of love?

Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever started a revolution playing by the rules." The

So far, I've only discovered four things that make life worth living for me. My work is one of them." "What are the other three?" Jacob wanted to know. "Music, books, and sex," I said. "Not necessarily in that order.

A search. We're all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hole in our souls. Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. A lot of people even use the concept of God itself. I could go on and on. I used to know a girl who used shoes. She had over two hundred pairs. But it's all the same thing, really. People, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows.

the past was a worthless human ability that had evolved for the sole purpose of reminding mortals of their mistakes.

Tell me what you listen to and I'll tell you who you are." Paul

And sure, I could've stayed where I was, continued working my nowhere job, living in my nowhere apartment, eventually marry some nowhere man, have a few kids and anesthetize myself with provincial monotony like most of my peers had done, and before I knew it I'd be six feet under. I wanted more.

In the West Fourth Street station, Vera was nowhere in sight, and I had an anxious, fizzy feeling in my stomach while I waited for the train. But I could feel the energy of the city in the vibrations coming off the tracks, and the diversity of the faces I saw around me made me feel so alive, so much a part of something kinetic, I swore I could taste it like metallic electricity on my tongue.

Dawn makes a sound. If you listen closely, right as the sun starts to come up, you'll hear it. It's like the echo of birth: silence, followed by a gentle push, followed by moans, then the sloppy deluge of new life. On good days I like it because it reminds me that I'm alive. On bad days it makes me feel like dust.

We had pathetically simple dreams: to do meaningful work that we could be proud of, to be together, and to be happy.

Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies.

I'm afraid of everything. Fear of being alone, fear of being hurt, fear of being made a fool of, fear of failure... Still, I think all my fears bleed from one big one.

Isn't it funny to think that this magnificent piece of matter is in a state of decay? Really, can you think of any other living thing that looks this glorious as it's dying?