Book detail: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book is a compilation of short narratives that delve into complex emotional landscapes, examining the intricacies of personal identity and the search for a sense of belonging in a diverse and often challenging world.
The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.
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“I was going to die and it was taking forever.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“I had a joint once and I didn't feel right for a whole year”
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“What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.”
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“Live the dream, Potato.”
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“People tend to stick to their own size group because it's easier on the neck. Unless they are romantically involved, in which case the size difference is sexy. It means: I am willing to go the distance for you.”
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“He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.”
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“But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.”
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“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”
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“It was a real whale, a photograph of a real whale. I looked into its tiny wise eye and wondered where that eye was now. Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second? When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“If there were a map of the solar system, but instead of stars it showed people and their degrees of separation, my star would be the one you had to travel the most light-years from to get to his. You would die getting to him.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.”
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“That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.”
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“... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.”
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“Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn't force her. I wouldn't have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don't know anything. Call me when you've cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I'll listen.”
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“Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.”
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“I went to the bedroom and lay on the floor, so as not to mess up the covers.”
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“Sometimes I would make left turns all the way around a block, and when I returned to the original intersection, I would feel disappointed to find all the drivers were new. It wasn't like a square dance, where you miraculously end up with your original partner, laughing and feeling giddily relieved to find him after dancing with everyone else in the world. Instead, they swung around and kept on going, some people were at work by now, or halfway to the airport. In fact, driving might be the thing most opposite of dancing.”
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“I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”
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“I really did not feel okay about any of this, and there was really nothing I could do about any of it.”
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“This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“I looked at other couples and wondered how they could be so calm about it. They held hands as if they weren't even holding hands. When Steve and I held hands, I had to keep looking down to marvel at it. There was my hand, the same hand I've always had - oh, but look! What is it holding? It's holding Steve's hand! Who is Steve? My three-dimensional boyfriend. Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I would go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone.”
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“I looked out the window for other passengers in love with their drivers, but we were well disguised, we pretended boredom and prayed for traffic.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”
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“They wordlessly excused each other for not loving each other as much as they had planned to. There were empty rooms in the house where they had meant to put their love, and they worked together to fill these rooms with midcentury modern furniture. ("Birthmark").”
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“You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it's not true. Generally, people don't like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.”
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“There was nothing in this world that was not a con, suddenly I understood this. Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.”
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“I could not make a move without making love.”
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“It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”
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“I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down as if I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest.”
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“He breathed out the bitter air that makes women doubt everything, and I breathed it in, as I had always done. I expelled my dust, the powder of everything I had destroyed with doubt, and he pulled it into his lungs.”
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“She bludgeoned me with a look of such limitless compassion that I immediately began to cry.”
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“She never inquired, but she never recoiled, either. This is a quality that I look for in a person, not recoiling.”
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“When she saw my messy desk, she said she was the same way, and there was no dust on the TV, and I was easy to love. People just need a little help because they are so used to not loving. It's like scoring the clay to make another piece of clay stick to it.”
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“We don't really believe in mowing the lawn; we do it only to avoid unnecessary engagement with the neighbors.”
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“When you can see the beauty of a tree, then you will know what love is.”
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“He pulled away, but his eyes held my eyes like hands.”
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“I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn’t laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.”
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“Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
“And why had Deb's last boyfriend dumped her? I dumped him. Maybe you didn't French-kiss him enough. I promise you that wasn't it. Tell me how many times a day you kissed, and I'll say if it was enough. Four hundred. Not enough.”
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“I wondered if i would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself.”
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“Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else.”
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“Don't wait to be sure. Move, move, move.”
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“It was a small thing, but it was a thing, and things have a way of either dying or growing, and it wasn’t dying.”
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“In an ideal world, we would have been orphans. We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents.”
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“Did you ever really love her? Not really no. But me? Yes. Even though I have no pizzazz?”
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“We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.”
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“I wish there were a class where we could just keep going around the circle. around and around, until we had finally said everything about ourselves.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories