Quotes from book

Beautiful Ruins

“He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.”

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing:”

“He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”

“No one gets to tell you what your life means!”

“… the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

“What business does memory have with time?”

“But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”

“All we have is the story we tell.”

“What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?”

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.”

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”

“Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life--not so much with the woman, whom he didn't even know, but with the moment.”

“Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”

“And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?”

“He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.”

“Stories are nations, empires.”

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”