Even under the best of circumstances, there's just something so damn tragic about growing up. Jonathan Tropper More Quotes by Jonathan Tropper More Quotes From Jonathan Tropper We are injured and angry, scared and sad. Some families, like some couples, become toxic to each other after prolonged exposure. Jonathan Tropper toxic scared couple At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it. Jonathan Tropper habit smoking thinking As far as rapprochements go, it's awkward and vague, but the advantage of being as emotionally inarticulate as we are is that it will do the trick. Jonathan Tropper inarticulate advantage awkward I wake up like this, this sense that I've somehow been transported to an alternate universe where my life took a left instead of a right beacuse of some seeemingly insignificant yet cosmically crucial choice I've made, about a girl or a kiss or a date or a job or which Starbucks I went into...something. Jonathan Tropper kissing girl jobs Phillip is the Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead. Jonathan Tropper different-directions our-family different You never know when it will be the last time you'll see your father, or kiss your wife, or play with your little brother, but there's always a last time. If you could remember every last time, you'd never stop grieving. Jonathan Tropper kissing brother father And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will feel like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benetar or the Cure on the soundtrack. Jonathan Tropper falling-in-love color mind But the muse won’t always cooperate and she will never be coerced. Sometimes she’d rather take a nap or see a mid-afternoon movie. Jonathan Tropper afternoon naps sometimes What it must feel like, I thought, to look at something, anything really, and know that it’s for the last time? Jonathan Tropper lasts feels looks Love made us partners in narcissism, and we talked ceaselessly about how close we were, how perfect our connection was, like we were the first people in history to ever get it exactly right. Jonathan Tropper connections perfect people ...the first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will fee like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack. Jonathan Tropper falling-in-love color mind Things have been a mess for so many years that trying to pin down a starting point is like trying to figure out where your skin starts. Jonathan Tropper skins trying years You can sit up here, feeling above it all while knowing you’re not, coming to the lonely conclusion that the only thing you can ever really know about anyone is that you don’t know anything about them at all. Jonathan Tropper lonely knowing feelings Fate already warned us to pack it in. We just didn’t hear it in time. Jonathan Tropper packs fate I whispered to Dad during Rosh Hashanah services, "Do you believe in God?" "Not really," he said. "No." "Then why do we come here?" He sucked thoughfully on his Tums tablet and put his arm around me, draping me under his musty woolen prayer shawl, and then shrugged. "I've been wrong before," he said. And that pretty much summed up what theology there was to find in the Foxman home. Jonathan Tropper dad prayer believe Phillip is a repository of random snatches of film dialogue and song lyrics. To make room for all of it in his brain, he apparently cleared out all the areas where things like reason and common sense are stored. Jonathan Tropper common-sense brain song It's hard to imagine her ever having felt lost, but it's impossible to know the people your parents were before they were your parents. Jonathan Tropper parent impossible people Rowdy, hopped-up college kids pass us in an endless, noisy blur like they're being mass produced or squeezed out of a tube - guys skulking in their T-shirts and cargo shorts, girls in low-slung jeans and flip-flops, pimples and breasts and tattoos and lipstick and legs and bra straps, and cigarettes; a colorful, sexy melange. I feel old and tired and I just want to be them again, want to be young and stupid, filled with angst and attitude and unbridled lust. Can I have a do-over, please? I swear to God I'll make a real go of it this time. Jonathan Tropper sexy tattoo girl Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything. Jonathan Tropper childhood one-day father When I'm writing novels, even screenplays, it's never an actor I have in mind; it's always the version in my head of who the character is. Once somebody gets cast, I have to adjust a little bit to who they are. Jonathan Tropper mind writing character
