Top 80 Steven Rowley Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “The books were easy to restack, but he pulled a few titles to donate, anyhow. Books should be an experience, he thought, not a trophy for having read them.”

— Steven Rowley

52. “Even on my best days, I always wished life excited me as much as it excited her.”

— Steven Rowley

53. “We’re too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don’t have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring things I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine.”

— Steven Rowley

54. “Turns out it’s painful to be loved. Intolerable even, at times.”

— Steven Rowley

55. “But he wasn’t living, he was hiding. From people. From friends. From family. From love. From work. From art. From contributing. From everything that mattered.”

— Steven Rowley

56. “I used to be scared of anger, and that’s because I bottled it up inside. Not anymore! It’s like vomiting after drinking too much. Sure, it’s unpleasant in the moment, but then you feel so much better! Anger is beautiful if you express it just right. Let it out.”

— Steven Rowley

57. “It was the thing Patrick missed most about youth, the assumption that everything would just work itself out. That and his back not hurting.”

— Steven Rowley

58. “The distribution of loss is inequitable. That’s just the way it is. That’s just the way the world works. There’s no one handing it out. There’s no one making sure everyone gets a fair share.”

— Steven Rowley

59. “Q: What sound or noise do you love? A: Puppies sighing.”

— Steven Rowley

60. “He smiled, happy that life could still surprise. Maybe there.”

— Steven Rowley

61. “I am a lot of things, many of them unflattering, but boring is not one.”

— Steven Rowley

62. “Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives.”

— Steven Rowley

63. “Hard truths can drive people apart. But great art can bring them back together.”

— Steven Rowley

64. “Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What’s the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there’s still time? Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going? But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here? How do you stand? How do you breathe? How do you go on?”

— Steven Rowley

65. “I do not offer one to Jenny.”

— Steven Rowley

66. “I have to be better about living in the not knowing.”

— Steven Rowley

67. “Bacon is pigs and pigs are our friends. Do you want to eat your friends?” Without hesitation. “If they taste like bacon.”

— Steven Rowley

68. “I can sit with her quietly, our bodies touching just enough to generate warmth, to share the vibrating energy of all living things, until our breathing slows and falls into the parallel rhythm it always does when we have our quietest sits. I.”

— Steven Rowley

69. “Why do you like boys?” Grant asked sourly, but with slightly more boredom than judgment. “I don’t know, why do you like pizza?” “Because it tastes good in my mouth.” Patrick wasn’t about to go anywhere near that.”

— Steven Rowley

70. “Grant looked skeptically at his uncle. “What?” “You have a lot of muscles.” “Thank you. One day I’ll tell you about gay men and body dysmorphia, but not today.”

— Steven Rowley

71. “To die would be an awfully big adventure. But it’s not true. Life is the real adventure. Having the hurricane inside you is the true adventure. And then I think not of Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I, but of Mel Gibson as William Wallace. Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives.”

— Steven Rowley

72. “I do not like a loose tooth, I do not like one in this booth. I do not like a tooth at brunch, I do not like foods that crunch.”

— Steven Rowley

73. “It’s natural, as our loved ones age, to start grieving their loss. Even before we lose them.”

— Steven Rowley

74. “You wouldn’t think a twelve-year-old dachshund would be good at Monopoly, but you’d be wrong there.”

— Steven Rowley

75. “What was the last day you were a child?”

— Steven Rowley

76. “Trying to say how much your mom loved you is like trying to describe the size of the universe. It can’t be quantified. Can’t be done. I’ll bet she finds a million ways to say hello. Your eyes just have to be open to seeing them.”

— Steven Rowley

77. “It is the perfect moment, a perfect marriage of stillness and life, of beauty and harmony, of aloneness and togetherness.”

— Steven Rowley

78. “We decided instead of moping our way through a difficult summer, we needed a party. We needed you.”

— Steven Rowley

79. “He never wanted other people to see the sadness. He was so afraid people wouldn’t laugh if everyone knew how twisted he looked on the inside.”

— Steven Rowley

80. “It feels sometimes like Joe, whom I loved very much, is being erased. He’s just a smudge now on a chalkboard, smeared in an effort to get rid of him to make way for something new. And I hate that.”

— Steven Rowley

81. “And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase. She.”

— Steven Rowley

82. “Los Angeles is a Neverland of Lost Boys who preen and crow far too often and demonstrate substance far too seldom. I.”

— Steven Rowley

83. “Somewhere, sometime, I stopped really living. I stopped really trying. And I don’t understand why.”

— Steven Rowley

84. “When does it get easy?” He thought about lying, but what was the point? Greg didn’t send his children to Palm Springs to be lied to, and even if he had they deserved better. Instead, he squeezed her hand and said, “Any day now.”

— Steven Rowley