T.J. Newman > Quotes

“The life of a child is about firsts. The life of a parent is about lasts.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“You don’t think everyone actually lives, do you? Most people just exist and roam around. It’s a choice, to actually live.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Accept the given circumstances and deal with what you can control. Don’t waste time on what you can’t.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Everyone dies. No one escapes it. It’s the only fair thing in the world. Sometimes you’re young, sometimes you’re old, sometimes you deserve it, sometimes you don’t.”
― T.J. Newman , Falling

“that was all life was. Shifting the balance, every day, to make room for joy and grace in whatever circumstances you’ve got before your time runs out.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“Time is luck. You grab it. You hold on tight. And you be there. You have to be there for it. It’s going, with or without you. And no one knows for how long. No one knows.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“It was the same impulse that stopped them from saying the things they wanted to say, doing the things they wanted to do, being who they wanted to be. They’d do it tomorrow. Next time. Later. And now, too late, they realized that tomorrow had never been a guarantee.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Strong women know loving someone is easy. Respecting them is a choice.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“In my professional opinion,” Jasmine said, “what Molly’s trying to say is: ‘I wish a bitch would.’ ”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“After all, a flight is just a random sample of the general population, a classic bell curve. A few assholes and a few exemplars, but primarily, a whole bunch of sheep.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“It didn’t matter if you died in a car crash or peacefully in your sleep at 102 or if you drowned in a plane at the bottom of the ocean. The end result would be the same. And that was all life was. Shifting the balance, every day, to make room for joy and grace in whatever circumstances you’ve got before your time runs out.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“Most people just exist and roam around. It’s a choice, to actually live.’ ”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“The truth that people are only as good as the world lets them be. You’re not inherently good and I’m not inherently bad. We’re just working through the cards life dealt us. So putting you in this position, dealing you these cards—what does a good guy do now? It’s not about the crash, Bill. It’s about the choice. It’s about good people seeing they’re no different from bad people.” He looked from Bill to Carrie. “You’ve just always had the luxury of choosing to be good.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“And that was all life was. Shifting the balance, every day, to make room for joy and grace in whatever circumstances you’ve got before your time runs out.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“All I want is to see what a good man—a good American man—does when he’s in a no-win situation. What does a man like you do when he has to choose. A plane full of strangers? Or your family? See, Bill, it really is about the choice. You. Choosing who will survive. That is what I want.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Compartmentalization was the only way to remain in control during a crisis. Tackle the issue with logic and reason—deal with how you feel about it later. It’s a mindset drilled into every pilot from day one.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“People didn’t dress like that anymore. It harkened back to a time when air travel was a rare privilege, a major event. Purposefully unchanged, the uniform kept a certain antiquated mystique alive. It elicited respect. Trust. It proclaimed a sense of duty.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“If there’s a fucking rainbow when they come outta there, I swear to god…”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“Ma’am, you’re taking a risk either way. But only one option ends with people dying.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Death always feels personal, Bill. It feels damn fucking personal. But you know what the crazy thing about death is? It’s not personal. Everyone dies. No one escapes it. It’s the only fair thing in the world. Sometimes you’re young, sometimes you’re old, sometimes you deserve it, sometimes you don’t. But what the fuck is that, anyway? Death doesn’t just happen to ‘bad’ people, death doesn’t give a shit.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“People didn’t dress like that anymore. It harkened back to a time when air travel was a rare privilege, a major event.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“He prayed for pain and suffering and agonizing misery—because it would mean they’d survived.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“Life is measured in birthdays. Graduations. Weddings. First steps. A first crush. A first kiss. Firsts, not lasts, are the tallies on a life’s scorecard.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“If he truly had understood what that meant—that time runs out—he would have done it all so differently. Maybe you can’t understand until you’re the one standing on the brink. Maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe it’s some biological trick designed to keep us safe from the saber-toothed tiger, only now it keeps us building big cities and worrying about deadlines. Maybe we’re not supposed to get that it will all be gone, we will all be gone—until it’s too late to do anything about it. If life’s a joke and death’s the punch line, in any good setup, you never see it coming. Because if we did understand, we would spend it all in the sun with the grass between our toes. What else was the point? We’re here, then we’re not. And before that and after that, the mountains stay put and the waves keep crashing and the storms come and go and none of any of that is aware that for a brief, fleeting moment, we were here too. We were a part of it too. It’s a relief to know you don’t matter, Steve realized. And understanding that brought him the first moment of peace he’d known since Claire had passed. Surely she must have seen that too. After all, she’d walked ahead; he was the one just catching up. None of it, none of us, matter. And once you see it, once you get it, once you’re free from the false belief that you think you have time, you can just enjoy it for what it is. And it is all so, so beautiful.”
― T.J. Newman, Worst Case Scenario

“You don’t think everyone actually lives, do you? Most people just exist and roam around. It’s a choice, to actually live.’ ”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“Her father had circled Ecclesiastes 9:3—“One fate comes to all alike, and this is as wrong as anything that happens in this world”—and beside it, he’d written one word. Underlined. In all capital letters. YES.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“There was everything before that moment, and then everything after. The paradigm shift was supernatural.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“The passengers in the plane shifted, moving back to let others come forward to the windows for a look. In one window appeared a man wearing an open button-down flannel shirt. Standing in front of him was a young girl with long, wavy brown hair. The man put his hands on the girl’s shoulders and they both smiled. There was a familial comfort to their touch. And the little girl was an exact younger version of Chris. Fitz held a hand over the phone. “Someone go call the mama bear to let her know.”
― T.J. Newman, Drowning

“See, Bill, it really is about the choice. You. Choosing who will survive. That is what I want.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling

“specifics.”
― T.J. Newman, Falling