Domestic Violets Quotes

“I instantly like people who laugh at my jokes. It's a weakness of mine.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“The captain of a ship can run a great ship, but he can't do anything about the tides.”
― Matthew Norman 2, Domestic Violets

“When you're having sex again, it makes you wonder why you weren't before. What could possibly have been bad enough to make you stop doing THAT?”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“She technically apologized yesterday, but it was one of those married-people apologies, more of a tactical move than anything else, a way of moving on with things.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“You look good," I tell my reflection. "Hot?" But this last part comes out with a question mark at the end. I've never been good at sales.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it's perfectly normal that she hasn't spoken in hours.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“If my penis were a writer/director, it would be Woody Allen - small, neurotic, and, frankly, hit or miss.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I don't think -" I begin, but then I stop there. Strangely enough, this sounds like a full, declarative sentence, as if I'm standing in a bar shouting out one of my most obvious character flaws. I don't think!”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Then we lapse into silence. It's these silences that do damage, that reveal glimpses of the distressed foundation struggling under the weight of things.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“The most important people in this man's life - the people who have mattered to him most - aren't my Mother or his wives or me or Anna or Allie. The people who matter most are the people in his head. That is loneliness.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I think you'll be a great teacher," said Gary. That's his role in my life: blind encourager and ambassador of false senses of security.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“In most companies, no one really notices you until they need you. And even then, when someone wanders into your office or IMs you and finds that you’re gone, they just assume you’re doing something constructive. Sitting in some horrible, pointless meeting. Stealing office supplies. Weeping gently in a bathroom stall on the fourth floor. Once you’ve established yourself as reasonably competent, you can pretty much come and go as you please. And”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“If a car can represent something, this one represents contradiction. For most of his life, my dad has been able to have any woman he wants. In response, he’s gone through as many as possible, betraying each for someone younger and more absurd. Conversely, for most of his life he’s been able to have any car he wants, too. In response, he’s remained married to this, a 1982 Porsche with a tricky clutch.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I have to speak carefully now because I have this strange habit of imitating British people without even realizing that I'm doing it.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“This house has endured three of my Dad's four wives, and so over the last few decades it's been a home-size mood ring, changing to the styles and temperaments of its female inhabitants.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“She rarely lets me off the hook, holding me to a different standard of emotional intelligence than the other men in her life - even my Brothers. She allows them to behave like Gary, docilely going about their lives, content and happy and completely oblivious to the sticky, ugly things just a few inches below the surface of everything.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I've been thinking about your Father a lot lately, and I've realized something. I married Gary specifically for the fact that he wasn't Curtis. If your Father has an opposite, it's Gary. I just need to decide if I want to spend the rest of my life with someone I married by default.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Anna is the sort of woman who writers write about, Tom. Somewhere in the third act, women like her save characters like you and me from ourselves. She's the loveliest literary device in the world.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Whoa," I say. "Look how tall he is." "Actors are always midgets in person," says Brandon, "But writers...they're giants.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“That's me, giving myself a tough-love speech. I'm going to start doing that more often, I've decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Sonya's a real person, like your Mother. Thirty years ago, that was your Mother's biggest flaw in my eyes, and now that's the thing I love most about Sonya. It's funny how things end, isn't it?”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“A woman never wants to be with someone else. Not really. That's the business of men, and for some reason we destroy things because of it. But not them. They're better than us. They only choose someone else when we push them away.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Tell her that I miss her. And that I'm sorry."

"You don't even know what you're sorry for."

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't matter. At this point, I'll be sorry for whatever she wants me to be sorry for.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I want to touch her, but I can’t, because I’m angry at her and she’s angry with me, and even though I love her, I don’t like her as much as I should.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“Like most men who are not Brad Pitt, I could do without the sight of my own nudity.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“That’s me giving myself a tough-love speech. I’m going to start doing that more often, I’ve decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“He arrived to find that she’d left, discovering then that he was all alone. Even the birds had gone. They’d abandoned their nest on the windowsill, and he was somehow certain that they’d never come back.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“You ever wonder if it’s really not more complicated than that?” I ask. “That maybe everyone else is right, and people like you and me just need to quit looking for stuff to be depressed about?” She looks up, and then back at her dirt, dismissing this stupidity without comment. When”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I was modeling sunglasses for a while, but that got kinda shady. No”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets

“I know nothing,” I say, cheerfully.

“You never seem to. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

“It’s very deliberate. I’ve found that knowledge is usually a burden. I prefer to be surprised and then eventually horrified.”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets