26 Quotes by Matthew Norman

Do you ever stop talking?” I say. “Seriously, it’s like you have a superarticulate form of Tourette syndrome.

Daughters,” he says. “You raise them and watch them grow up, and you love them so much it makes you crazy. Then one day some guy shows up. Maybe he’s nice. Maybe he’s got a good job. Maybe he’s got his shirt tucked in and he calls you sir. But he’s never quite what you’re hoping for. If you have one someday – a daughter, I mean – you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I’m comfortable with who I am,” I say, which is a funny thing to say while shaming my own body in a full-length mirror. “Shut.

Remember that string of movies when we were younger, like mid ’90s? The ones where the nerdy girl finally puts on makeup and a Wonderbra and everyone realizes how totally boneable she is?” “Yeah.” “Well, that’s you,” she says. “We’re in one of those movies. You’re my hopeless teenage girl, all stuck in your shell, and I’m here to give you a fresh coat of makeup and a slutty dress. Push those boobies up, Andy Carter, it’s go time.” “Do.

The most important people in this man’s life – the people who have mattered to him most – aren’t my Mother or his wives or me or Anna or Allie. The people who matter most are the people in his head. That is loneliness.

So much of marriage is spent only half paying attention to each other. Talking while driving. Talking while watching Netflix. Talking while staring at a toddler, or scanning utility bills or catalogs from the mail or Evites for some distant weekend.

Maybe that’s just what moving on is, not getting over, but skipping over. And.

I realize how utterly amazing it is that we’re all able as humans to go about our daily lives without constantly obsessing over the fact that each of us will almost certainly be in a sterile bed someday, medicated and slowly dying. This officially marks the most depressing thing that has ever crossed my mind.