The Normals Quotes

“His brain is frantic with the awful math of diminishing sleep.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Hope in all forms should be distrusted. Hope is dumb breakaway glass shattered on the softest head. Survival maybe, blood and thunder, but not hope. While Billy can appreciate the technology of hope, the well-crafted mechanism of religion, the internal wiring of promise, the silicon of love, he has no idea how the gizmo works. In all likelihood hope would lay in his hands, unresponsive, the On button hidden from sight. He'd end up hammering nails with hope or employing hope as a paperweight, until someone would finally tell him, "Hey, you're using hope all wrong." Hopelessness is what Billy prefers. It has a simpler design and fewer moving parts.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Joy squeezes Rufus as if invisible claws might tear him away from her, and Rufus pretend-squirms but in the end gives way to her nestling chin. Billy looks away, thinking this deserves privacy, this expression. He glances toward his hands, with something like shame.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“The SHAME news event is discussed in terms of I was there, I saw the whole thing, I knew those guys, their own brush with fame springing from someone else's notoriety, a sort of new American celebrity, Billy thinks...”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Billy turned toward his mother. Often, when eye-to-eye with her, he'd wait for some recognition of affection—this was his mother for heaven's sake—and when nothing flashed between them, he would look away.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Billy apologized with his eyes.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“But I would argue that the death of originality is a comforting thought because when we are presented with true originality, with true genius, which still exists in the corners, we shrivel up inside and die. We can love it, we can pursue it, that rare great contemporary work of genius, but its presence is debilitating. Old master painters, they're fine because they have the added element of time, they're already in syndication, but new masters, they're devastating. Current greatness makes us feel unspeakably small.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Or he could stumble back in, all flustered and confused, and confess, "I'd like to kiss you very very badly," with an endearing stammer. Better. More honest. Practically the truth. But now just another rehearsed line.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Hello," she says like a mind reader who senses her own presence in your every thought.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Do you know what it comes down to? It comes down to who I am every minute of the day. Every minute of the day is a test whether my thoughts will just stay thoughts and not see the light of day.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Who understands that we are all reflections of love and not mere reflections of ourselves?”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“How old is Rufus?" Billy asks.

"He's almost nine. School's just started and he's not a fan. He's been playing sick for the last three days, telling me it's something deep in his belly that won't show up on any thermometer. Insists on sleeping with me and he's a kicker."

"He sounds like a character."

"If by that you mean nightmare, yes, he's a character."

"But you love him."

"Of course I do. My God, that's never a question. He's everything to me.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“It's one thing to see yourself in your father's face, the same eyes, the same chin, but it's another thing to hear yourself in your father's words, in gestures and phrases, in those small recognizable ways that dislodge you from the inside.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“So are you saying Christ is just an image?" is yelled.

"I'm not here for a theological debate. But I will say that I think Christ as an idea is fundamentally more important than Christ as a historical fact.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Billy smiles, the verb hardly doing justice to the thrill in his lips, the vestibule, the commencement of what might follow, of what is already churning in his lungs.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Personalities have been shelved for the sake of good first impressions.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“On and on Lannigan goes, giving Billy the full light of his performance, Billy keeping his expression easily lit despite the discomfort of over-enunciation and extreme gesticulation, Billy instantly reminded why he avoids the theater, where bad acting fills him with the public embarrassment of others, where a missed line or cue, a prop gone wrong, a ringing cell phone, can rip his heart more than any well-wrought scene, where the tension of possible mistakes undercuts even an Olivier.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Even worse, when he's presented with a sleeve of photos, he will speed-thumb through the Billyless images and only alight on himself—laughing broadly, gesturing slickly, winking cheesily, beaming bogusly, slouching sadly, gawking insanely—and wince. Focus a lens on him and he turns into an adverb.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Nothing worse than jerks with sudden souls.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“What's he have, your father?" Lannigan asks.
"I'm sorry but I really don't want to talk to you," Ossap says.
Billy finds the bluntness stunning, almost awe-inspiring.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Months, years from now, he'll probably still wonder, still weigh the evidence, like he still remembers hitting poor Jasper Moss in the face with a baseball, Jasper distracted by an airplane, "An L 10—11," he oohed right before the ball smacked his nose, unleashing blood, Jasper crying and Billy—Huh?—laughing—Huh!—though he quickly covered his smile and ran over and apologized like a fiend. No matter how lax his morals, such memories never leave Billy. Almost daily they pop into his head like random firings of synaptic shame.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Strange, Billy thinks, how clocks can divide and run so differently, how in the meanwhile all assumptions can be rendered false without your knowledge.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Some conceal tattoos with the seriousness of sneaking freedom into a repressed country.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“No problem, ma'am." Ma'am? Where did that come from? He's far from Southern. Weird how giving directions can make you feel like a minor superhero—Mapman—like all those nothing good deeds where you lend a hand or give up a seat or tell a blind person the light has changed, these things proving yourself—what?—vaguely human. Weird and sad how the slightest drop of your own kindness can fill you up.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“When children or dogs pass him on the street, their eyes seem to stick onto him as if they're glimpsing his hidden soul. They're his judge and jury and his case is never strong.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Billy watches them, downright stares behind the safety of sunglasses.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Ms. Baker-Blau assumed his pause carried a qualm.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“She wrote a note on her clipboard, her cursive like soap bubbles blown from a pen.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals

“Plots soothed the boy. And as an adult he can still fall under this spell, especially when his shoes make a certain patter on the pavement and strangers offer him their glance for an extra beat—Billy will start feeling as if he's on a mission even if the mission is buying a loaf of bread. It's almost meditative, his version of yoga where he stretches into the person he wishes he were, all slick and sly. But the balance is tricky. The smallest miscue—pushing instead of pulling on doors, hailing an already taken taxi, pressing and pressing the elevator Close button—can throw him on his back.”
― David Gilbert, The Normals