Who We Are Quotes

“Well, then, Otter, of course I don’t like Bundt cake. It has eggs in it. Baby chicken eggs. You don’t see chickens standing outside of maternity wards waiting to get our babies to make their Bundt cake, do you?”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“I think you are seriously overestimating my dancing abilities. My kind of dancing usually ends up on the Internet, where people watch it so they can stop feeling sorry about their own lives. You know how people say they have two left feet? It's like I have no feet and my stumps are attached to wheels shaped like triangles.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Wait until you meet the therapist.
That bad?
Let's just say i can't believe he's a real person.
Like Santa Claus?
More like if Santa Claus and Ron Jeremy had a child and then that child had a child with Richard Simmons.
So, like a leprechaun?
Yes, Otter, exactly like a leprechaun.
I'm going to tell him I believe in Santa Claus, just to see what happens.
I dare you.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Round 5: Telling him I felt bad about the puppy-shirt thing, I told him
we could go pick out a dog at the pound now that we had a yard for it.
Instead, I took him to the dentist. Winner: Bear “Rock Star” McKenna.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“it's not about where you come from. It's about who you are”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Nothing's too fast if it means forever.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“family is not defined by blood. It’s not always who you’re born to that you’re stuck with. It’s what you want it to be, what you make of it. It’s the people around you who see you at your worst and are not afraid to pick up the pieces when you fall apart. It’s the people who can call you on your bullshit. It’s tough to hear, but if you do hear it, it means that someone gives a damn about you and chances are you should probably listen. It’s the people who look at you each time they see you like they haven’t seen you in years. It’s the people who you fight for. It’s the people you’d lay down your life for. It’s the scariest thing in the world, but, if you let it, it’s also the greatest. If I could have you remember anything from our time together, it would be that it’s not about where you come from. It’s about who you are.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Dammit. I hate it when my crazy is right.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Otter pulls me up to the bar and leans over. “What’s wrong? You stink!”
he shouts.
I glare at him. “I smell fine, you asshole. I used your cologne.”

He rolls his eyes and comes closer, his lips against my ear. I shiver. “I
said, what do you want to drink?”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“He squints at the screen. “So, would you call yourself a… hmmm, that doesn’t sound appropriate… a ‘nasty come hungry bottom dumpster bitch’?”

I wish life was more like cartoons and a piano would fall on him and his teeth would become the piano keys as stars circled his head.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“My name is Bear. I am a reluctant homosexual (or, at least, I resemble one). My boyfr—er, life partner (gag!), is apparently like a forty-year-old woman, and his biological clock is exploding all over the place, and we don’t know how to turn off the alarm. We need a woman (ha!) to allow us to put our sperm into her so that we can create the miracle that is life! You, as the surrogate, must not be crazy!!!!!”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Why is everyone being all quiet?" the Kid asks. "Are we having a staring contest? If so, you should have told me because I wasn't quite ready yet.”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“Wait till it’s my turn to tell the story! They’ll be like ‘Bear who?”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“You can only get knocked down so many times before you start shying away from a raised hand, even if it's extended in kindness.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“If God is real, I think he might be some kind of masochist. I imagine he sits there up on his cloud, long white robes flowing, drinking a forty of Mickey’s and smoking a Winston as he flips me the bird and plans what he’ll do next to piss me off.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“I sit up straighter and puff out my chest a little bit, unsure why I'm doing so even as I do it. I know when I speak I'll have dropped my voice an octave to make myself seem more manly, and when I shake he hand, my grip will be tight and strong. Stupid, I know, but I'm a guy. It's what we do.”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“Yeah, ’cause you were so quick to speak up earlier? it mocks. What’s that one guy’s name again? The one who is your heart and soul? Octavius? Othello? Bah. I can’t be bothered to remember, either. How interesting, your hypocrisy.”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“Because you’re worried, Bear. And it makes me nervous. You know when you worry, I worry. It’s just something we do.”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“Hey, remember when you didn’t know that you wanted Otter to spray his man babies all over your face and we didn’t have to talk about our feelings all the time?”

“Yeah, those were the good old days.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“We’ll count it, even if it’s so incredibly gay that it should come with its own packet of fairy dust that you could sprinkle in the air when you say it.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“But it's weird, right? It's like we're a gay bug zapper and all the gays keep flocking to us because they think we're bright and shiny, but all I want to do is electrocute most of them because they annoy the crap out of me with their high-pitched whining.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“I wanted to tell her how that praise had made me feel, how starved I’d felt for any kind of attention, that I’d begun to think of my teacher Mrs. Terrance like she was my friend, like she was my mother, like she would take me home with her one day to her big house that would be warm and smell of fresh bread, and there would be gold stars all over the floors and ceilings, and she would look down at me as we walked through the door and tell me that this was my home too, that I would get to stay with her forever because she loved me too. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say that to my mother. Even then, I knew the power words had. To heal. To hurt.
So I held my mother while she cried, and eventually the tears subsided, and she began to hiccup softly, and this made me giggle, and she almost looked like she was going to smile at me, and I forgot about the house filled with gold stars because one smile from my mother was worth a billion gold stars and a billion Mrs. Terrances and a billion houses that smelled like fresh bread.”
― TJ Klune, Who We Are

“I told myself that once I was done ripping the seagull's head off, I would turn around and give a speech so saccharine that even Eddie wouldn't be able to console them when I was finished. I would destroy them, and they would drown in an ocean of their tears.

But first the seagull.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“What, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty? Bullshit. What they don't tell you is that regardless of how full the glass is, it's filled with acid, and you'll burn your face off.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“Creed looks like Santa barfed Christmas presents in his lap (excited and disturbed all at the same time, natch).”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“You look like you’re caught in the headlights, and you’re happy you’re about to get hit.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“He'll probably end up angling for a threesome. Then I'll have to get my animal name so I can be a part of the group. So Native American of you white boys. I'll probably go for something like Falcon. Or Wolf.'

'Jackass suits you better,' Anna intones.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“But that’s not it. At all. I know it’s not because there’s sometimes when he smiles at me, that one smile he only does for me, and my heart starts to race and my skin starts to itch, and I feel sweaty and alive and like I could take on anything that was thrown at me, if only he would smile at me like that again”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“I’ll make sure he knows that it doesn’t always matter where you come from. That even though we’re not blood, it doesn’t matter. He’ll belong to all of us, and we’ll belong to him.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are

“You remember that I’ve got you. Okay? Whenever things look rough, whenever you don’t think you can take another step and those fucking earthquakes seem to be able to tear you apart, you have to know that I’ve got you.”
― T.J. Klune, Who We Are