Patrick Ryan > Quotes

“What is it about time that confounds us? We spend it. We save it. We while it away. We waste it. We kill it. We complain about not having enough of it, or about having too much of it on our hands. We regret what we’ve done with it. We give it away. We want it back. We say “time and again” when something is bothering us and “it’s time” when something is supposed to end. Felix saw it so clearly: all we should ever want of time is more of it. Life was so simple when it was reduced to the barest of necessities: more time; more air; more Duke Ellington.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“This is why old people seem distant and distracted, he thought. We aren’t living in the past; the past is living in us.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“They were, Felix thought, like a plant that could only get as big as its pot, no shaping or pruning allowed. Still, a healthy plant.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Calling this new weapon “a harnessing of the basic power of the universe” was, he knew, horseshit. It was a harnessing of the hubris of men.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“The wisdom that comes with age was needling, he found, because it brought the clarity of hindsight without the means to change anything.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“The things that we love tell us what we are.’ If I ever get a tattoo, it’s going to be that, right across the top of my chest.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“This is why old people seem distant and distracted, he thought. We aren’t living in the past; the past is living in us. And it’s talking. We get old to be able to recalibrate everything we thought was going to be important. We get old just to hear it. It says, the days, the days, the days.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“When he read, heard, and watched the news, he wondered how many people were out there doing the same thing he was—scratching their heads as they tried to figure out how to prioritize their worries and confront their prejudices; drawing their own maps with their fingers crossed.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“The whole reason you build a bridge together is so the water can run under it, right? And not wash the two of you away? Sometimes one of you makes it flood, and then the water recedes.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“so the water can run under it, right? And not wash the two of you away?”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Tell him only Goofus lays his bicycle down in the middle of people’s walkways. Gallant parks his bicycle to the side, and uses his kickstand.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“They disappeared into the task, shoveled themselves night and day into the furnace of their intention to keep Skip safe and healthy.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Because they had to go to a wife, or to work, or to a war, or to that secret place of stoic brooding all men were given the key to at birth. Had any mother ever had the time for stoic brooding?”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Over and over, she’d learned that what the dead most often conveyed was love and forgiveness. She could only conclude that these were the two most important things in the world—so important that people carried them into the afterlife for the sole purpose of being able to hand them back to the living.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Forgiveness wasn’t so great if you were the forgiver, Becky discovered. Forgiveness was supposed to be the high road, but it was low and bumpy—and long. Still,”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Problems, in this way, win out. Problems conquer the world.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Their expressions shifted just slightly when they spoke to him. He detected the anticipation of annoyance. Sensed the lowering of expectations. He couldn’t bring himself to care about it; he could only watch as this guy with a shattered heart and a questionable composure (a barely recognizable version of him) spent his days walking around in the extreme heat”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Was this the birthright of his actions, he wondered—living with the uncertainty of uncertainty?”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“A weapon without shape that moved with the breeze and took down every living thing in its path wasn’t warfare. It was extermination.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Therein, she thought, lies the unbearable solitude of a lie: you’re alone when you tell it, alone when you live it, alone when you try to dismantle it.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Wasn’t it a fair measure of a person, what they did with their mistakes? How they managed to stumble into some of the right steps, after taking all the wrong ones?”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“thought that was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen. He called Tom Buckeye from that day on. —”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“the eleventh hour, when it mattered most.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“her”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“You'll find a squirrel who can sing 'Mairzy Do-ates' before you find a man who takes you seriously."

Her advice was to care less. Even better-don't care at all. She didn't mean about Cal, but about the things that came out of his mouth. "You have to love him, and you have to let him love you back. But you don't have to care about every dumb things he says, because I can guarantee you, tomorrow he's going to say something just as dumb." Becky's eyes widened at the irreverence of that. "It's not just Cal," Ida said. "It's all of them. They think they've got all the brains, but if they did, they wouldn't walk around sounding like idiots half the time. When you give him a hug, squeeze extra tight. That's what I do with your father. He says I only know how to give bear hugs, and I want to say, 'That's because I'm trying to squeeze the stupid out of you, honey!”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“bull’s eyes in the doorframes,”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“giant hawk swooped down and—gently—carried all three of those boys away. —”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Therein”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“The world wanted a baby, it seemed; it just hadn’t wanted her.”
― Patrick Ryan, Buckeye