Top 60 A.J. Finn Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Cotard delusion, a psychological phenomenon whereby the individual believes that he is dead.”

— A.J. Finn

2. “My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft.”

— A.J. Finn

3. “Sometimes I’ve got too many thoughts at once. It’s like there’s a four-way intersection in my brain where everyone’s trying to go at the same time.”

— A.J. Finn

4. “My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there.”

— A.J. Finn

5. “Through adversity to the stars.”

— A.J. Finn

6. “I may do some good before I am dead.” – Jude, Part Sixth, Chapter 1.”

— A.J. Finn

7. “She’s lovely, a genuine redhead, with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back.”

— A.J. Finn

8. “A shut-in. No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out.”

— A.J. Finn

9. “The last flakes sifted down an hour ago, and now the midday sun floats in an aching-blue sky – a sky “not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye.” Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.”

— A.J. Finn

10. “She practices yoga three times a week, tripping down the steps with her magic-carpet mat rolled beneath one arm, legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon.”

— A.J. Finn

11. “You can read all about it, if you like, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. DSM-5 for short. It’s always amused me, that title; it sounds like a movie franchise. Liked Mental Disorders.”

— A.J. Finn

12. “Ad astra per aspera, read the inscription. Through adversity to the stars.”

— A.J. Finn

13. “You can hear someone’s secrets and their fears and their wants, but remember that these exist alongside other people’s secrets and fears, people living in the same room.”

— A.J. Finn

14. “Strangers on a Train.”

— A.J. Finn

15. “As I surface, the dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone.”

— A.J. Finn

16. “Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart.”

— A.J. Finn

17. “I just miss him. I miss him, I love him.”

— A.J. Finn

18. “If I don’t think, I can do it. If I don’t think. Don’t think. Thinking hasn’t gotten me anywhere so far. “The definition of insanity, Fox,” Wesley used to remind me, paraphrasing Einstein, “is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.” So stop thinking and start acting.”

— A.J. Finn

19. “Popular film misquotes. “Play it again, Sam”: Casablanca, allegedly, except neither Bogie nor Bergman ever said it. “He’s alive”: Frankenstein doesn’t gender his monster; cruelly, it’s just “It’s alive.” “Elementary, my dear Watson” does crop up in the first Holmes film of the talkie era, but appears nowhere in the Conan Doyle canon.”

— A.J. Finn

20. “Night Must Fall,” he reads. “It’s a good one to start with. Suspenseful but not scary.”

— A.J. Finn

21. “You live in a dream,” sneers Uncle Charlie. “You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? Use your wits. Learn something.”

— A.J. Finn

22. “She’s come undone. That was a book, I believe.”

— A.J. Finn

23. “The world is a beautiful place,” she insists, and she’s serious; her gaze is even, her voice level. Her eyes catch mine, hold them. “Don’t forget that.” She reclines, mashing her cigarette into the hollow of the bowl. “And don’t miss it.”

— A.J. Finn

24. “The definition of insanity, Fox, Wesley used to remind me, paraphrasing Einstein, is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different result.”

— A.J. Finn

25. “Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.”

— A.J. Finn

26. “She wears a butter-yellow sweater that exposes a terse slit of cleavage; her locket dangles there, a mountaineer above a gorge.”

— A.J. Finn

27. “And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.”

— A.J. Finn

28. “They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas.”

— A.J. Finn

29. “And I stand there in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing.”

— A.J. Finn

30. “Okay?” The word barrels down my tongue, elbows other words aside. “Okay.”

— A.J. Finn

31. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time working with children, if I could whittle those years down to a single revelation, it’s this: They are extraordinarily resilient. They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas.”

— A.J. Finn

32. “And old movies, of course, brought me and Ed together.”

— A.J. Finn

33. “Something I’ve noticed: In the absence of others, I swear more often and more loudly. Ed would be appalled. I’m appalled.”

— A.J. Finn

34. “He dropped by the next.”

— A.J. Finn

35. “I would leave the house to investigate, like Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt.”

— A.J. Finn

36. “When I hear the door shut behind me, I exhale. At the sink I fill his glass with water and bring it to my lips. I think I can taste him all over again.”

— A.J. Finn

37. “Now, movies that postdate Hitch: The Vanishing, with its sucker-punch finale. Frantic, Polanski’s ode to the master. Side Effects, which begins as a Big Pharma screed before slithering like an eel into another genre altogether.”

— A.J. Finn

38. “Gaslight – Ingrid Bergman.”

— A.J. Finn

39. “Shaw also said, alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.”

— A.J. Finn

40. “Then a generic recorded greeting: “We’re sorry. The person you have called... ” A woman’s voice – always a woman. Maybe we sound more apologetic.”

— A.J. Finn

41. “Streaks of rainwater like varicose veins slide down the umbrella.”

— A.J. Finn

42. “You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way, she said to me. Or, rather, I said it to myself. Life made me this way.”

— A.J. Finn

43. “I press the Talk button. “Yes?” I call. Less inviting than Hello, more gracious than Who the hell?”

— A.J. Finn

44. “It sounds to me as though you’re getting to a place where you can meet others on their terms, not just your own.” “That’s possible.” “That’s progress.”

— A.J. Finn

45. “I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.”

— A.J. Finn

46. “In his absence, explains his widow, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like an old lady.”

— A.J. Finn

47. “First documented in the late 1800s, then “codified as an independent diagnostic entity” a century later, though largely comorbid with panic disorder. You can read all about it, if you like, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. DSM-5 for short. It’s always amused me, that title; it sounds like a movie franchise. Liked Mental Disorders 4? You’ll love the sequel!”

— A.J. Finn

48. “As Bernard Shaw said, I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. As Shaw also said, alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. Good old Shaw.”

— A.J. Finn

49. “I could dial directory assistance, call the house, warn her. I won’t. Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.”

— A.J. Finn

50. “Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that?”

— A.J. Finn