The Half of It

• “Note the lack of fire and brimstone in No Exit, ‘we are the source of our own hell’” while underlining quote from Jean Paul Sartre: ‘Hell is other people’.
  
• “The Remains of the Day, all that barely repressed longing.”
  
• “Don’t plagiarize ‘Wings of Desire‘ from Wim Wenders.”
  
• ‘In love one always starts by deceiving oneself…..and ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance’. ~ Oscar Wilde
• —————————————————————–
  
• “When you’re a pretty girl – and I know it makes me sound conceited – but that’s why you’re even writing me, right..? When you’re the pretty girl, people want to give you things...But what they really want is to make you like them. Not ‘like them’ as in ‘I like you’ but ‘like them’ as in ‘I am like you’. So I’m like a lot of people. Which makes me kind of no one.“
  —————————————————————–
• “I never really thought about the oppression of fitting in before. The good thing about being different is that no one expects you to be like them…“
  “…Doesn’t everyone think they’re ‘different’ but pretty much we’re all different in the same way…”
  “Says the girl perched on the rarefied peak of Mt. Popularity.”
  “Easy Mr. I Know Nothing about Love. I may surprise you.”
  —————————————————————–
• “What’s surprising is: people don’t see what they’re not looking for.”
  “The obvious unseen.”
  —————————————————————–

“I had a painting teacher once tell me that the difference between a ‘good’ painting and a ‘great’ painting…is typically five strokes. And they are usually the five boldest strokes in the painting. The question of course…Is which five strokes?”

“I get it. After one’s slaved away at making a “pretty good” painting, the last thing you’d want to do is…”

“…ruin everything. That’s why I gave up painting. Still.. I wonder if that is how I’m living my life.“

“Maybe that’s the thing. If you do ruin your painting…you gotta know you have everything in you to get to that ‘pretty good’ painting again. But if you never do the bold stroke…you’ll never know if you could have had a GREAT painting.”

Ellie and Aster

• —————————————————————–
• “There are no points for effort.”
  “Isn’t that what love is? The effort you put into loving someone?“
  —————————————————————–
• “Ssshh! So in No Exit, three people are trapped in hell…“
  “That’s nuts. He can’t stand these people, a door opens for him to leave – but he doesn’t leave?”
  “He’s trapped in hell. It’s a metaphor for existence.“
  “My Nana hated Minnesota. She left.”
  “Your Nana is not one of the great thinkers of the 20th century!”
  “My Nana’s not trapped in hell either!“
  —————————————————————–
• “The thing about No Exit is it’s like how what I really want is to run my own shop – one with new recipes – and FYI, “TACO SAUSAGE” IS REALLY EFFIN GOOD – but I’m just the fourth son, and my family has made the same dogs for 49 years, and doesn’t matter that we’re going out of style or broke – it’s Nana’s recipe, and if my Ma can’t have her Nana, at least she can keep making her sausages, and if I break away, I’d break her heart, and it’s her heart or mine so… I stay.”
  —————————————————————–
• “What do you like about her?”
  
  “She’s pretty and smart and she’s never mean and she smells like fresh ground flour. Why?”
  
  “I don’t know. (now thinking) How her eyes look right into yours…How she twirls her hair when she’s reading. How her laugh busts out like she can’t help herself and she stops being so… PERFECT for just a few moments. How she has at least five different voices. How you could live in an ocean of her thoughts and feel like she knows you, like really KNOWS–“
  
  “What you just said? That’s what you say when you love someone.“
  
  “No I was just talking – You try harder than anyone I’ve ever met – with the possible exception of my dad with my mom – to show a girl you love them… And if love isn’t the effort you put in… then what is it?”
  —————————————————————–
• “I don’t believe in God.”
  “That must be so nice.”
  “No, it is not. Its….lonely”
  …
  “Gravity is matter’s response to loneliness.”
  —————————————————————–
• “Hell is other people.”
  —————————————————————–
• “You know, Trig, I have been writing your papers for the last four years. And if you’ll forgive me, I’m just gonna rewrite you one last time. Love isn’t patient and kind and humble. Love is messy and horrible and selfish and… It’s not finding your perfect half. It’s the trying and reaching and failing – the effort you put in with no promise of success. Love is… being willing to ruin your good painting for a chance at a great one.”