Playworld Quotes

“I was taught the indelible lesson that, to arrive at love, I must suffer through someone else’s idea of it. And yet even now, I resist the notion that we are reducible to our wounds.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Twice in my life, perhaps, would I subsequently recall being so captivated by the sight of someone, would time itself feel so arrested. But this was the first. Its effect was at once clarifying and total.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“So maybe that’s what you’ve been put on the earth for. To come up with a language for your life.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Something bad happens to everyone,” he said. “Except it’s not bad. It’s just something. That’s the trick. Recognizing it’s just something. That’s the difference between pain and suffering. Suffering’s the former and pain’s the latter.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“And then he laughed that rich man’s laugh of his. A sound that affirmed what Elliott would say to me later that year: judge people not by how they lose, but how they win.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“So how do you stop it from happening?” I asked. “Infidelity, or disappointment?” Elliott said. He chuckled. He had green eyes that slit handsomely when he smiled, and I could tell he was deeply pleased that after eight years of therapy we’d finally got on to a subject worth talking about. “Well, for one thing, you lower your expectations. Nobody’s perfect, most especially you. Best to perfect yourself before finding fault with your partner.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“She elicited in men one of the most consuming desires there was, which was to rescue her.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“There’s not a person in the world who’s yet been able to entirely fulfill another’s needs,” Elliott continued. “For some people this is as disappointing as it is unacceptable.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“It’s like that odd feeling of optimism you get when you see a town leveled by a tornado.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Something's always happening.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“I sipped, what slid down my throat had the shininess and consistency of mercury and felt like a long snake made of ice.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Never mistake your own perceptiveness for self-awareness,” he’d once told me, in those fervent couple of years I saw him again when I returned from school, “because one is an entirely different mode of knowledge than the other.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Because I could now name this feeling I’d been suffering, one that had dogged me of late, during our vacation and afterward, but that I recognized from all the way back to the fire. It had been so omnipresent it was more like an atmosphere—one that, having been made aware of it, I could neither unsee nor unfeel, and its name was loneliness.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Because I realized that I hated him. I always had, all these years. Not for who he was or what he wanted. I hated him because he’d showed me who he was without knowing he had. Because I knew him better than he knew himself, and this seemed the very condition of his being an adult.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Our education was spatial. Racial. Tribal. Urban. American. But mostly—and this is the most important thing—it was dominated by Kepplemen, over whom we were each failing to gain leverage. And who wore the costume of love. And who was, day in and day out, teaching us fury, aggression, complicity, desperation, exploitation, and, most of all, silence.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Broadly speaking, there are two types of wrestlers. The first might best be described as multilingual—fluent, that is, in a wide range of attacks, counters, and escapes. Wrestlers such as these are kinesthetically creative and tend to be great athletes. They roll like the best jazz musicians play: inventively, improvisationally. Quicksilver runs through their veins. They appear to eschew strategy, flow with the go, but there is method in their fluidity: they are chasing beauty, something close to a dance, the purpose of which is to create a chain of movements so ironclad for their opponents it is a form of inevitability. They are often late bloomers but more formidable in their maturity. They bristle with weapons; they are expert in all. I aspired to this style but didn’t know it at the time. The second type builds his entire strategy around an unstoppable move. These wrestlers are blitzkriegers, tsunamists. Their modus operandi is avalanche, overwhelm. Like tornadoes, they elicit the desire to take shelter or run. There is a seeming simplicity to their games, but this is a mistake: an incredibly complex set of operations is required to direct you into their wheelhouse. They are most dangerous at a match’s outset. Their efficiency is nasty, brutish, and often produces contests that are short. To immovable objects they bring unstoppable force. Given the choice, they’d finish off their opponent in ten seconds and happily call it a day.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Apparently, her grandmother had been a very wealthy woman, a socialite and art lover. If I’d grown up at the Museum of Natural History with my mom, then Amanda had spent hers wandering the Whitney and Guggenheim with her grandmother. She had apparently squandered her fortune on four marriages (the photo was taken on the boat of her second husband, a Cuban hotelier), and when I asked Amanda why she was more like her, since serial monogamy and heartbreak didn’t seem like something to which one might intentionally aspire, she finally answered her father’s question: “Because I’m a romantic too.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Oren won handily, and we moved on to Monopoly, which was interrupted by dinner, which on our last night was always lasagna: Auntie Maine’s recipe was at least ten layers, and we dipped our artichoke leaves in mayonnaise and Oren let me eat his heart.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Dad asked for permission to borrow Grandpa’s Peugeot. The keys hung on a hook above the kitchen’s desk. “Fantastic car,” Dad said once we were inside. He pulled the shoulder belt across his chest. “What model is this?” I asked. Dad shrugged. “It’s French.” He pushed the stick left to right and then turned the keys in the ignition. The engine sounded more like a piece of farm equipment than a sedan. A thrum came up through the seats and made the gearshift vibrate. The black fumes transported me back to New York, and I rolled up my slightly cracked window.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“I was thinking about my match. I was pressing my head into Goldburn’s ribs. I’d taken a moment to laugh and then drove him out of bounds. Seconds I couldn’t get back. My failure to recognize our position. Oh, that arena, where there was nowhere to hide, where all your weaknesses were exposed. I thought: Know where you are on the mat.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Elliott stuffed a ten in Oren’s palm. Oren said, “I’ll bring you change,” to which Elliott replied, “Keep it, play till your heart’s content,” and then we steeled ourselves before approaching Elliott’s wife, Lynn. She presented a massive challenge. A hulking presence at the far end of the table, dew-eyed and manatee-quiet among so many jabberers, she sat, as she always did, directly across from Elliott, their respective seats saved before their arrival as if every event they attended were one they were hosting.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“I felt an overwhelming urge to scratch out their eyes, like the defaced ads I saw on the subway, and was reminded of one of Elliott’s favorite aphorisms: “Those who annoy us the most remind us of ourselves.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Elliott resumed walking with one hand thrust in his pocket while he gestured with the other. “Some people never wanted to be married in the first place. They liked the general idea but had no idea the enterprise required they bind their lives to someone else’s, to the limits they impose. Still others marry their problems rather than another person. So for them, cheating on their spouse is like a vacation from a job they hate but are too afraid to quit.” Now he placed a hand on my shoulder and raised his finger to indicate I should pay close attention. “But mostly, infidelity is a case of what I like to call the practical use of other people.” He began walking again. “We start to feel invisible to the person with whom we’re most intimate. We desperately want to be seen by them. But rather than address it with our partner and, God forbid, risk them ignoring us, we instead seek to become the apple of someone else’s eye, which causes us to drift further from our beloved until they finally notice our absence. Or don’t. Which confirms our invisibility either way.” Elliott stopped again for emphasis. “And that absolves us from the responsibility of owning our feelings.” Pleased that I was taking this all in, he shrugged. “Of course, some people cheat just to blow up their lives.” “Why do that?” I asked. “Because it’s exciting to rebuild,” Elliott said. “There’s so much to do. Divorce is as big a commitment as marriage, and then being in love all over again leaves barely a moment for introspection. Plus, it’s a chance to start over. Get your hands dirty. Flex muscles you haven’t used in years. The possibilities seem limitless! I’ll get it right this time! It’s like that odd feeling of optimism you get when you see a town leveled by a tornado. But that’s an illusion. Our history is always with us. You following?” I wasn’t, so I nodded. “There’s not a person in the world who’s yet been able to entirely fulfill another’s needs,” Elliott continued. “For some people this is as disappointing as it is unacceptable.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Is that right?” Elliott asked, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy, and I’d continue down this different path, enjoying myself in an animal-trainer sort of way, watching Elliott drift again, trying to beat his previous snooze’s duration, counting Mississippis until his head jerked violently and he said, “How about we go for a walk?”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“A man like that,” Mom countered, “treats his cars like women and his women like cars.” Oren wouldn’t have it, but Dad was delighted by her turn of phrase. That her witticisms might get a rise out of anyone, let alone my father, always surprised her, and this always made me slightly sad for her.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Elliott and Sam were arguing heatedly. “If it moves,” Sam said, “they tax it. If it keeps moving, they regulate it. And if it stops moving, they subsidize it. But not Reagan, I guarantee it.” In response to which Elliott shook his head and said, “The only authentic form of trickle-down economics is the president’s character.” And then I noticed Naomi wave my parents over to her.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“He had that familiar Queens inflection and idiom, the direct object of his sentences occasionally preceding their verb like a caboose pulling a train. “Elliott, Lynn, this speech I didn’t carefully prepare or nothing, so please bear with.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld

“Is it red or black?” Oren asked. “My dear boy,” Sam said, tilting the rearview mirror so he could look my brother in the eye, “I think we both know the Ferrari only comes in one color.” Confused, Oren said, “What’s that?” “Fast.”
― Adam Ross, Playworld