Gavin Edwards > Quotes

“River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it."

After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it."

"We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“We're all worth it, man. We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“When it was Hearts turn, she related a vision she had: that River hadn't wanted to be born, preferring to stay with God in heaven. God had convinced him to go, and they haggled over how long, settling on twenty-three years.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“We’re all worth it, man,” River said with a beatific smile. “We’re all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“don’t think anybody’s necessarily ready for death,” Depp reflected. “You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you’ve said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“The human spirit is a mysterious thing: traumas that flatten some people bounce off of others.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Love conquers all,” River said once. “Even the assholes that don’t want it.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“The human spirit is a mysterious thing: traumas that flatten some people bounce off of others. Pain and hope get tangled into uncuttable Gordian knots.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“1:09 A.M.: EACH SEIZURE LASTED about twenty seconds. River’s arms would flail around, while his knuckles and the back of his head kept smacking against the pavement. Davis started hoping for more seizures—they were evidence that River was still alive.   1:10 A.M.: JOAQUIN CALLED 911, frantic but trying to keep it together as his beloved brother passed away before his eyes. “It’s my brother. He’s having seizures at Sunset and Larrabee. Please come here,” Joaquin begged. “Okay, calm down a little bit,” the dispatcher replied. Moments later, Joaquin said, “Now I’m thinking he had Valium or something. I don’t know.” His voice cracked with anguish. “Please come, he’s dying, please.”   1:12 A.M.: AN ACTRESS ON the scene remembered, “Outside there was a crowd of people, and I saw him—lying flat, totally ghostly white.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“In keeping with its code-breaking theme, the opening credits of Sneakers has the names of some of the film’s major players presented as anagrams before they get unscrambled: “BLOND RHINO SPANIEL” becomes “PHIL ALDEN ROBINSON,” while “FORT RED BORDER” turns into “ROBERT REDFORD” and “A TURNIP CURES ELVIS” reveals itself as “UNIVERSAL PICTURES.” Not all cast members got their names shuffled—if they had, the world might have discovered that one anagram for “RIVER PHOENIX” is “VIPER HEROIN X.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Fred's question: 'Dr. Orr, what is one little word that would wipe out evil?'

'Fred, it's 'forgiveness,' ' his mentor said without hesitation. 'The only thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. It simply disintegrates in the presence of forgiveness.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“Every child starts out loving animals, identifying with them. But early on, adults start sending them contradictory messages. They’ll give a kid a stuffed animal to hug and love and sleep with. But at the same time, they’re serving them animals for dinner every night. It’s crazy, if you think about it. But when you’re young, you just accept what grown-ups tell you as the truth.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“For River to discover himself in Rimbaud's life and Miller's prose was simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-pitying. Tellingly, he was more interested in Miller's book than in Rimbaud's actual writing: he responded to Rimbaud not as a poet, but as a symbol.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Mostly, she tried to get on with her life, even as she carried around her loss and her horror. The lesson she took from River’s death was to be more selfish: since life is fleeting, don’t waste it with the wrong people.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“River mostly contributed backing vocals and handclaps, although he may have played some guitar on “Rock Out with Your Cock Out.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“That’s the end of the drugs,” he promised. “I don’t want to go down to the place that’s so dark it’ll annihilate me.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“FRED ROGERS ENTERED THE WORLD WITH A SERIOUS DISADVANTAGE, albeit a typical one: he was born a child.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“In 2008, Van Sant finally made Milk, his award-winning Harvey Milk biopic. Sean Penn starred instead of Robin Williams, while the role of Cleve Jones, which Van Sant had earmarked for River, was taken by Emile Hirsch, who was just eight years old when River died.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“My mother used to say, a long time ago, whenever there would be any real catastrophe . . . she would say, ‘Always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers—just on the sidelines.’ That’s why I think if news programs could make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing medical people—anybody who is coming into a place where there’s a tragedy, to be sure that they include that. Because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s hope.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“What children probably need to hear most from us adults is that they can talk with us about anything and that we will do all we can to keep them safe in any scary time.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“of. By really getting into your work, the nonessential stuff drops away.”
― Gavin Edwards, The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing

“This is my major work in life,” Mister Rogers said in the spring of 1967. “I don’t want to do anything else. I just hope I can make more programs for educational television.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“the world was shocked when River Phoenix overdosed, but the people working on this film should not have been . . . this performance should have been seen by someone as a cry for help.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“In 1997, Van Sant was doing a reading at a bookstore from his no Pink. Dedicated to River, the book starred a thinly disguised version him.) An audience member asked him who had hoisted River Phoen
body into the car.
"I was hoping that viewers would project themselves into the film and decide for themselves who it was," he told her.
"Okay, then," she replied. "Who picked him up in your version?" Van Sant paused. "In my version . .. in my version, I pick him up.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“What a difference one person can make in the life of others.”
― Gavin Edwards, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever

“Bill then addressed the room: “I have a little experience with this. I say, you know how funerals are not for the dead, they’re for the living? Bachelor parties are not for the groom, they’re for the uncommitted.”
― Gavin Edwards, The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing

“By extension, River was Moses, already they were casting him as a future prophet”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Around the age that most children attended kindergarten and are entrusted with blunt-tipped scissors, River had the massive responsibility of supporting his family.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Bill was the Cubs fan the whole nation looked to in the moment of victory: he was shocked and overjoyed and relieved of the weight he had been carrying around for decades. “I’ve been imagining this for a long time,” Bill said. With the”
― Gavin Edwards, The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing

“River's long-standing dream was to use his money to buy land and set up a sanctuary for damaged children, "all sorts of homeless kids and kids from foster homes or kids who have been in and out of mental institutions" He envisioned a farm, so the children could help grow their own food, also populated by stray cats and dogs. "The kids would be assigned to an animal of their own and they would have this cycle of caring for something. The farm would have solar panels and be self-sufficient. It wouldn't be isolated because it would be a whole community in itself. There would be room for individual expression and creativity. It would be really wonderful.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind