Home for the Holidays Quotes

“When I was in college I had a wisdom tooth pulled, and I was given a prescription for a bottle of narcotic pills that surely have reached the top of the DEA's hit-list by now. I don't remember the name of the pills, nor do I remember how I ended up in Tijuana. It's probably a long story.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“I had long ago learned that books are the best presents you can buy for a person--except me. I like toys. But the point is books last longer, and aren't as easy to break, like almost everything else you can buy in today's free market. Call me an English major, but I happen to believe that books are more substantial than pet rocks, hula hoops, and most fruitcakes.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“Trash bags are among my favorite consumer products. I wish I had invented them. What a racket. People buy them, take them home, and throw them away. Let’s see Bill Gates top that.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“A lot of artists start out as failed poets, then move on to being failed short-story writers before they finally break through to the big time and become failed novelists.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“Get thee behind me, whatever you are," that's my motto.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“I had learned that some people feel that books are "intrusive," in the sense that books put things in their heads that they don't want there. Some people call these things "ideas." Maybe they're right. Sometimes these ideas sprout into what are known as "thoughts," and you know my feelings about school, government, and big businesses--thoughts are the last things they want rattling around inside people's heads because thoughts inevitably lead to consumer protection, free speech and hippies.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“I guess I was sort of like a person who has seen a really great movie or read a really great book and then ran around trying to get his friends to read it. You're bursting to let everyone know that they should take some time to enrich their lives. Why I think their lives will be enriched if they listen to me, I don't know.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“They say that a man has to want to quit before he can stop working, that nobody can stop working for him. His first step is to make a fearless inventory of his life and admit to himself that he has a job.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“Being a cab river is not unlike being a magician--minus the top hat, the cape, the rabbit, an the gorgeous assistant. But you do have an audience.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“It’s funny how thinking things makes you think other things. I don’t think I’ve ever thought anything without thinking about something else.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays

“It was an odd sort of urge, as though I had a craving to clear all the crap out of my life—but if I did that I wouldn’t own anything.”
― Gary Reilly, Home for the Holidays