Top 160 Matthew Quick Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I loved him like I loved walking through summer grass barefoot, like I loved a warm mug in my palms, like I loved driving on a long road as the sun sets in the distance. It was a good, safe, simple sort of friendship – well, at first, anyway.”

— Matthew Quick

102. “Although once when we were talking after class, Herr Silverman told me that when someone rises up and holds himself to a higher standard, even when doing so benefits others, average people resent it, mostly because they’re not strong enough to do the same.”

— Matthew Quick

103. “In the future I man a lighthouse with my wife, daughter, and father-in-law. We send out a great beam of light every night even though no one ever sees it.”

— Matthew Quick

104. “The books we read in literature classes – just innocuous letters and symbols on paper, until we run the words through our brains and allow the fiction to manifest in the real world.”

— Matthew Quick

105. “She gazes into her own pupils and sees the void that opened up inside of her, swallowing everything like some black hole of happiness...”

— Matthew Quick

106. “Maybe if we would just picture our enemies jerking off once in a while, the world would be a better place. I don’t know.”

— Matthew Quick

107. “And man the great light. Even when no one is looking.”

— Matthew Quick

108. “It’s so quiet in my room that I wonder if this is what being dead sounds like.”

— Matthew Quick

109. “It felt like so many years’ worth of anxiety and worry were trying to escape all at once – maybe like an emotional volcano, only my mom and dad, they didn’t run away to save themselves but sprinted right into my lava. They both jumped up off the couch and wrapped their arms around me even though it meant touching each other. We stayed like that for a long time, and it felt good – almost enough to justify everything that had precipitated it, but not quite.”

— Matthew Quick

110. “I still believe you fell into my life for a reason.”

— Matthew Quick

111. “How did high schools all over the country decide that athletes needed pep rallies to boost their pride and self-esteem? Isn’t it enough that people actually pay money to see these kids compete in games? That people cheer from the sidelines? And they get their names in the paper? Why don’t they take all the lonely ghost floaters in every high school and have a pep rally for them? Make all the most popular kids in school sit on the hard bleachers and cheer until their asses hurt like hell?”

— Matthew Quick

112. “All the time in the world may sound nice in theory, but in practice it can become a swift kick to the balls. CHAPTER 7 Harper’s is the local convenience store around here, only it’s nothing like the Wawas and 7-Elevens I frequented when I lived in the Philadelphia area.”

— Matthew Quick

113. “I marvel at her – a woman with stocks and business suits and her own house.”

— Matthew Quick

114. “After I returned to New Jersey, I thought I was safe, because I did not think Kenny G could leave the bad place, which I realize is silly now – because Kenny G is extremely talented and resourceful and a powerful force to be reckoned with.”

— Matthew Quick

115. “It’s okay to love people who aren’t perfect. People who still have work to do on themselves.”

— Matthew Quick

116. “We live in our heads... which can be very scary places. We forget that we are not just and I, but a she and a you, too. We forget to see ourselves as others see us. For some people, the problem is narcissism – meaning they are selfish, too self-absorbed. But I think that your problem is that you are too selfless. You care about the needs of others more than you care about your own needs. You are strong for them even when it’s a detriment to your own well-being.”

— Matthew Quick

117. “But do we really think about it deeply or do we just ultimately do what we’re supposed to do? What our parents want us to do? What society wants us to do?”

— Matthew Quick

118. “Why is it that we love surprising people? Is it because we like to know something they don’t Does it give us a sense of power over others? Was I happy because I was controlling Asher? Or was I simply trying to do something nice?”

— Matthew Quick

119. “You could have that sort of life if you ask God for it. If you give your life to God, He will provide for you in marvelous ways. He promises us that. If He takes care of the sparrows, how much more will He take care of us?”

— Matthew Quick

120. “Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take.”

— Matthew Quick

121. “It’s like the P-38 is an old skeleton key I’m trying to fit into an old padlock and when I make that connection I’ll hear a click and a door will open and I’ll walk through and be saved.”

— Matthew Quick

122. “A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?” Albert Einstein.”

— Matthew Quick

123. “You must sometimes pay a high price for individuality, especially if you are a woman.”

— Matthew Quick

124. “Sometimes we need to get violent with our words because no one is listening otherwise.”

— Matthew Quick

125. “I’m waiting for the stars to pop through the black above, waiting for the future to wash over me like so many salty waves – some as turbulent as my thoughts and some as velvety as a good kiss.”

— Matthew Quick

126. “It’s so much easier to shut the refrigerator door, which is totally a metaphor, I realize, for my life.”

— Matthew Quick

127. “Linda doesn’t like to give out her cell number to “non-industry people,” like the office workers at my high school, because she thinks she’s Donatella Versace.”

— Matthew Quick

128. “Maybe you held back for too long and then you had to explode. Maybe there was no middle ground left. Sometimes we need to get violent with our words because no one is listening otherwise.”

— Matthew Quick

129. “Do people actually do that – go back and thank their teachers years later, when they’re no longer handicapped by youth and ignorance, when they figure out just how much their teachers actually did for them?”

— Matthew Quick

130. “Sometimes I actually hope that he did once feel empty and hopeless and helpless enough to slash his wrists to the bone, because if he felt that horrible and survived to be such a fantastic grown-up, then maybe there’s hope for me.”

— Matthew Quick

131. “Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.”

— Matthew Quick

132. “I thought of a line from the Dalai Lama’s book A Profound Mind: “’We should work toward cherishing the welfare of others to the point where we are unable to bear the sight of their misery.”

— Matthew Quick

133. “She was acting like a little excited kid... like she could still get really excited about something in public without trying to hide it.”

— Matthew Quick

134. “Do you know what happens when you do nothing? Nothing.”

— Matthew Quick

135. “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

— Matthew Quick

136. “I’d like to feel okay all the time – to have the ability to sit and function without feeling so much pressure, without feeling as though blood is going to spurt from my eyes and fingers and toes if I don’t do something.”

— Matthew Quick

137. “If he was able to make her feel even the slightest bit of guilt for being so oblivious – if he could get through all that makeup and high fashion.”

— Matthew Quick

138. “Teachers have to believe. You have to care, and that takes a lot of work and effort. Teachers need people to give back once in a while too, if only a little.”

— Matthew Quick

139. “Lauren is tethered to religion.”

— Matthew Quick

140. “And the whole time I wished your mind was a sea we could scuba dive in together because I’d like to see the LOVE statue that sits at the bottom of your consciousness.”

— Matthew Quick

141. “Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.”

— Matthew Quick

142. “I went to the park and watched the pigeons bob their heads and I felt so lonely that I hoped someone would come along and stick a knife into my ribs just so they could have my empty wallet.”

— Matthew Quick

143. “You can’t expect kids to save themselves, can you?”

— Matthew Quick

144. “There are no such things as fictional characters.”

— Matthew Quick

145. “You ever feel like you’re sending out a light but no one sees it?”

— Matthew Quick

146. “Maybe that’s why adults drink, gamble, and do drugs – because they can’t get naturally lit anymore. Maybe we lose that ability as we get older.”

— Matthew Quick

147. “I want to have an assistant someday who will make freaky teens cool T-shirts so that they can do good things in style. I want to be Donna. So frickin’ much.”

— Matthew Quick

148. “There are no guarantees when it comes to such treacherous things as friendship. It’s a tricky business.”

— Matthew Quick

149. “I realized that the truth doesn’t matter most of the time, and when people have awful ideas about your identity, that’s just the way it will stay no matter what you do.”

— Matthew Quick

150. “It didn’t seem like everyone could or should be honest at the same time – like maybe the structure of the world wasn’t built to handle such mass amounts of truth.”

— Matthew Quick