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The Leftovers

Tom Perrotta

Top 10 Best Quotes

“There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. (67)”

“Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us.”

“It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.”

“That’s why we get involved with other people, right? Not just for their bodies, but for everything else, too – their dreams and their scars and their stories.”

“To this day, she’s still sad. Because there’s not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I’m just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And it didn’t hurt me at all.”

“Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault. (341)”

“Things change all the time - abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason. But knowing that didn't do you that much good, apparently.”

“Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer — that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with people you’d left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn’t love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.”

“We all basically live in a world that we define by the people who have disappeared.”

“I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom.”

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Book Keywords:

bodies, grief, change, tolerance, death, mourning, stories, existentialism, silence, involved, life, human-nature, boredom, communication, dreams, people, scars, connection, matured

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