Quotes from Paul Neilan

I never wanted to be Mickey Rourke. I don't think he did either.

Buy it for the lady who's about to become your mother-in-law, the one who's already trying to control your life and the lives of the three children she's already pressuring you to have. Give her the book one day out of nowhere, just as a nice surprise, and when she hugs you, calmly whisper: "Don't fuck with me, Ellen. Don't even think about it. Ever." Then smile at her like everything is wonderful. Because from now on, it will be.

I'd never actually talked to a deaf person before but I'd been swimming and gotten water stuck in my ears lots of times, felt that underwater silence as I shook my head and watched people's mouths moving without hearing the words, so I knew what it was like for her. I could empathize.

I heard them complain sometimes, but it was the ineffectual bitching of people who didn't expect anything about their situation to ever change, and who wouldn't know what to do with themselves if it did.

Lying to other people is fine and usually funny, but lying to yourself is tacky.

There are chickens, there are eggs, there are deaf girls singing karaoke. Nothing makes sense anymore.

It's real hard to come off as even slightly superior when you're living a Tom and Jerry episode.

They didn't know that I didn't know anything, and I was hoping to use that to my advantage. The only thing I had going for me was my ignorance. This was the story of my life.

It was nice of her to want to believe the best about me. People tend to do that with the strangers they're fucking. If she wanted to think that apathy and independence were the same thing, good for her. Maybe she was right.

You're only who you think you are until you aren't anymore. And it isn't up to you. It's up to time. Life is timing. The test of time. We all have to take it, and none of us pass. No matter how hard you study. Perfect attendance. All that homework. Extracurricular activities. You're still getting an F, just like everyone else. Finite. Failed. Fucked.

Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers, especially when you do not know what the answers are. I didn't give a shit either way.

It takes a special, ironic kind of person to use their own impending death as an impetus to finally live.

If disgust was a shotgun I would've blown my own head off.

Romance isn't dead, it's just under constant surveillance.

It was horrifying. Khaki pants and polo shirts and exclamation points at the end of every sentence. Each introduction was like a kick in the groin. When someone made a bad joke it was like they'd taken a running start. I had to drop to one knee after this pale turtle-looking man with a huge Adam's apple and a headset touched his finger to his earpiece and said, "Houston, we have a new temp." I would never be able to have children.