17 Quotes by Stephen Elliott

The best book I read in 2007 was Stoner by John Williams. It’s perhaps the best book I’ve read in years.

In every book I ever wrote the point was to do as much as you could after coming to terms with your limitations.

You'd be amazed how much fun you can have if you get out of your own head. The problem is that now people are only interested in themselves. What we have is a non-voting generation. That's what they should call you guys, the non-voting generation. You think you can't fix anything until you fix yourselves. Well, let me be the first to tell you, you will never fix yourselves. p.32

What we remember, and how we order and interpret what we believe to be true, are what shapes who we are.

A stranger can see in an instant something in you that you might spend years learning about yourself. How awful we all are when we look at ourselves under a light, finally seeing our reflections. How little we know about ourselves. How much forgiveness it must take to love a person, to choose not to see their flaws, or to see those flaws and love the person anyway. If you never forgive you’ll always be alone.

If you never forgive you’ll always be alone.

We all think we’re retaliating,” I say. “That’s the nature of conflict. We all think our actions are justified by someone else’s actions. But actually, we’re responsible for what we do.

You can tell a lot about a person’s childhood by whether or not they like Christmas.