129 Quotes by Tom Perrotta

There was no dignified way to answer a question about your underwear.

I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom.

It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.

In the far corner of the yard, two squirrels raced up a tree trunk, their little feet scrabbling frantically on the bark. He couldn’t tell if they were having a good time or trying to kill each other.

After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice.

These days he was like a zombie, all grim business, just another jerk with an erection.

That’s why we get involved with other people, right? Not just for their bodies, but for everything else, too – their dreams and their scars and their stories.

And right now he was feeling the weight of all those losses, and the weight of the years that were behind him, and the weight of the ones that were still ahead, however many there might be – three or four, twenty or thirty, maybe more.

Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her.