Top 100 David Arnold Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “What would I tell her? The truth, I hope. That in my longing for originality and relational honesty and a hundred other I-don’t-know-whats, this action, while strange and socially awkward, makes more sense than just about anything else in my world. And even though it’s cryptic and more than a little odd, sometimes cryptic and odd are better than lying down for the Man.”

— David Arnold

52. “Peer pressure is one thing, but when your dad’s the pusher, it’s something else entirely.”

— David Arnold

53. “But listening was about more than hearing; it was about when and where you put yourself in the story.”

— David Arnold

54. “I think Mad saw in books what I saw in art: the weightless beauty of the universe.”

— David Arnold

55. “Be a kid of honesty. Wave it like a banner for all to see... Be a kid who loves surprises... Be curious, but content. Be loyal, but independent. Be kind. To everyone. Treat every day like you’re making waffles... Live your effing life. Do it with gusto... Know yourself. Love yourself. Be a good friend. Be a kid of hope and substance. Be a kid of appetite.”

— David Arnold

56. “How to be human, it seemed, was an infinite ocean in which Kit had only yet dipped the corner of a toenail.”

— David Arnold

57. “I wish wishing were enough, but it’s not. Sometimes you need a thing.”

— David Arnold

58. “It’s okay.” I say again. Because if I keep saying it, maybe it will be true. It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay.”

— David Arnold

59. “I lowered my voice, because as I’d learned some time ago, a whisper was louder than a scream.”

— David Arnold

60. “I have asked the stars many questions. This is the first time they’ve answered.”

— David Arnold

61. “We sit there, just being together, not speaking or even looking at each other, and it feels quietly tectonic, the kind of moment that might move a mountain if it were let outside.”

— David Arnold

62. “Exactly why I don’t have a boyfriend,” I whisper, turning to the window. Because you’ve referenced The Lord of the Rings twice before lunch, or because you’re talking to yourself? I have to admit, I’ve got me there.”

— David Arnold

63. “It occurred to her that this was true friendship: a person in your life who was willing to walk through strange doors into dark places, so long as they could walk there with you.”

— David Arnold

64. “Yes, Mom but how does the music get from that needle” – I pointed my chubby little finger to the record player -“to my heart.” My earliest memories of music had nothing to do with listening, and everything in the world to do with feeling. – Mim, Mosquitoland.”

— David Arnold

65. “It was beauty and discord at once. Nature unleashing her global psyche.”

— David Arnold

66. “I do not understand these things. But that’s okay. Not understanding isn’t the same as misunderstanding.”

— David Arnold

67. “There are times when I absolutely, 110 percent, without a doubt, have to laugh at a thing. ‘Cause if I don’t, that same thing will make me go stark-raving bananas.”

— David Arnold

68. “Maybe instead of portals to other worlds, all we needed were portals to other times.”

— David Arnold

69. “You know–I think my best course of action is to just let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.”

— David Arnold

70. “Sometimes being with gets overlooked I think.”

— David Arnold

71. “I wish wishing were enough, but it’s not.”

— David Arnold

72. “We are, each of us, hopeless hopers.”

— David Arnold

73. “I am not me, I said to the ocean, to the old feet, to the face in the mirror. And it was true. In the dream, the reflection staring back at me was not my own. It was my mother’s.”

— David Arnold

74. “A real apology cost something, because you had to stand there like an idiot and say it out loud for the world to hear – I’M SORRY. And the world, as always, would respond with a resounding, ‘Yes. Yes, you are.”

— David Arnold

75. “Sometimes, things are more embarrassing when you’re alone. I guess when no one’s around to hear your stupidity, you’re forced to bear the brunt of it.”

— David Arnold

76. “Like a Siren, it tempts me with whispered promises of the ever-elusive Normal Life.”

— David Arnold

77. “That’s the thing about life – you don’t know how long you have until you’re dead, and by then, you don’t know much of anything at all.”

— David Arnold

78. “He’d done more than give her a story – he’d given her life inside the story.”

— David Arnold

79. “Do so with gusto, because my God, there’s nothing sorrier than a gusto-less existence.”

— David Arnold

80. “The longer you hold onto an apology, the harder it is to give.”

— David Arnold

81. “Pain makes people who they are.”

— David Arnold

82. “I smile at Beck, a wide-eyed, can-you-believe-the-awesomeness-that-is-Walt sort of smile. He’s wearing the same one. “I think we’ll all remember the rendezvouski.”

— David Arnold

83. “Look at you,” I whisper, smiling, crying. “Lovely.”

— David Arnold

84. “I’m already jealous of myself five minutes ago. Because you can’t un-know a honky-tonk.”

— David Arnold

85. “There are times when talking just pushes out the tears.”

— David Arnold

86. “Sinking into fiction: the if-only of if-onlys.”

— David Arnold

87. “Whenever Kit got down about being born in a world where Flies ate humans, he reminded himself that even in the world before Flies, things made little sense.”

— David Arnold

88. “I sat there frozen, wondering if this icy truth could ever melt, if the madness of the world could ever be cured.”

— David Arnold

89. “And behind the good doctor, his Wall of Hubris: I counted seven framed degrees, hung with care and pride and more than a little jackassedness. Oh-ho, you don’t believe I’m important, eh? Well then, how do you explain these?!?!?!”

— David Arnold

90. “In the background Bowie sings of lawmen and cavemen, sailors fighting in dance halls, and I wish he were here now, in this kitchen with me, and I would hold his hand and together we would talk of life – on Mars, or otherwise.”

— David Arnold

91. “Strange, how a person could create something they didn’t understand. But maybe that was what made art great: Who cares where it comes from, so long as it comes from you?”

— David Arnold

92. “She never said so out loud, but some things speak loud enough on their own.”

— David Arnold

93. “Beck’s smile is intense and sincere, a smile with, not a smile at. Mom used to say you could tell a lot by the way a person treats the innocent, and Walt is nothing if not innocence personified.”

— David Arnold

94. “I’m done roaming hillsides. I’ve scoured the corners of the earth. And I’ve found my people. God, I’m almost jealous of myself.”

— David Arnold

95. “My Reasons may be hard, but my Objectives are quite simple.”

— David Arnold

96. “I see a million miles of life, a million lives in one, a million headaches, heartaches, brainaches, a million ingredients in her eyes.”

— David Arnold

97. “Music was more than subjective; it was erratic. It was the ship on the horizon that one sailor saw, the other sailor didn’t.”

— David Arnold

98. “Don’t underestimate the value of friends.”

— David Arnold

99. “Because this is my life, the only one I get. And if it’s a choice between a life Albilitoled, or a life full of Life... well, that’s not really a choice at all.”

— David Arnold

100. “I cry because I’ve never smiled like that, not once in my life. I cry because I love. For some reason, I always have.”

— David Arnold