Ray Flook > Ray's Quotes

“It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“There are all kinds of mix tapes. there is always a reason to make one.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“I'd shut the whole world down just to tell you”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix-tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“I realize that I will never fully understand the millions of bizarre ways that music brings people together.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligence. Accepting all that kindness, though, made me feel stupid.

Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world was all gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand, enjoy music they can improve by making up filthy new lyrics.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“Nothing connects to the moment like music. I count the music to bring me back, or more precisely, to bring her forward.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient. You go back to a cassette the way a detective sits and pours drinks for the elderly motel clerk who tells stories about the old days--you know you might be somewhat bored, but there might be a clue in there somewhere. And if there isn't, what the hell? It's not a bad time. You know you will waste time. You plan on it.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“Girls take up a lot of room. I had a lot of room for this one.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“It was bewildering and humbling to keep discovering how many brave things people can fail to talk themselves out of doing.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.”
― Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match