Quotes by Tom Perrotta

About Tom Perrotta:

Thomas R. Perrotta is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election (1998) and Little Children (2004), both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films. Perrotta co-wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film version of Little Children with Todd Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also known for his novel The Leftovers (2011), which has been adapted into a TV series on HBO.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for...

Tom Perrotta

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 ac...

Tom Perrotta

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

Tom Perrotta

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

Tom Perrotta

Things change all the time - abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason. But knowing that didn't do you that much good, apparently.

Tom Perrotta

She told her therapist it reminded her of coming home the summer after her freshman year at Rutgers, stepping back into the warm bath of family and friends, loving it for a week or two, and then feeling trapped, dying to return to school, missing her...

Tom Perrotta

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.

Tom Perrotta

It’s a matter of dignity,” the Chief explained. “At a certain point, that’s all you have left.

Tom Perrotta

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.

Tom Perrotta

Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us.

Tom Perrotta

He knew for a fact that it was possible to fall and just keep falling.

Tom Perrotta

They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.

Tom Perrotta

To this day, she’s still sad. Because there’s not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I’m just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And ...

Tom Perrotta

I’m only human, she told herself. There’s not enough room in my heart for everyone.

Tom Perrotta

Nora had been training herself not to think too much about her kids. Not because she wanted to forget them - not at all - but because she wanted to remember them more accurately. For the same reason, she tried not to look too often at old photographs...

Tom Perrotta

Next time she’d have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy’s face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some ter...

Tom Perrotta

Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while.

Tom Perrotta

Back then, when everybody thought the world would last forever, nobody had time for anything.

Tom Perrotta

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

Tom Perrotta

I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut.

Tom Perrotta

Author Bio

  • NameTom Perrotta
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist and screenwriter
  • BornAugust 13, 1961
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Screenwriter; Novelist