The Autumn Balloon Quotes

“It’s funny… when you’re young you spend your life trying to convince yourself you’re not like your parents. And then, every now and then, you’ll do something a certain way, some mannerism, or you’ll say something. When our car broke down upstate, I remember I hit the wheel and said, ‘I’m not made of money!’ And I caught myself and thought, Gee, Louie, you just sounded like Pop. When you’re young and it happens, it drives you crazy. And then you live long enough, and it makes you smile a little.”

He wipes a tear from his eyelashes with the back of his hand.

“That’s a nice part of life,” he says.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“For a long time, I felt like I was destined to inherit a certain kind of life and so I wouldn’t let myself think of it for fear of being even cognitively associated with it. But writing about those same people and places changed that, and I could suddenly face them and understand them and forgive them. It was really then that I was able to understand that I wasn’t my past. Nobody is. One thing I have always loved about writing is how it can transform you and allow you to reinvent yourself. You could spend your whole life as a teacher, a doctor, a mother, a convict, whatever it may be; but the day you start writing, you start over. You’re a writer now.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“She likes to write messages on balloons and send them to the sky. She takes out a black Magic Marker and she starts writing on the dozen or so balloons, one for each member of our family who died. She doesn't think she can write well and asks me not to read her notes.

She likes to think they'll soar all the way to heaven. I think she knows they end up tangled in power lines or deflated in a pile of orange leaves in someone's backyard miles away, but I can never bring myself to say that to her. I've often wondered what they must think, those people who find our balloons. I've wondered if they read the messages and understand what they mean.

I remember watching those balloons as a little boy, each fall, wondering if someday I, too, would be nothing but a balloon in the sky, soaring toward the sun until I began to fall slowly back to earth and into the hands of a stranger.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I remember watching those balloons as a little boy, each fall, wondering if someday I, too, would be nothing but a balloon in the sky, soaring towards the sun until I begin to fall slowly back to earth and into the hands of a stranger.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“To the members of my family who are no longer with us, I’d like to say I’m sorry. There is a quote by Stephen Dunn I’ve always loved; he says, “Our parents died at least twice, the second time when we forgot their stories.” I hope by remembering your stories, the good and the bad, you can forgive me for sharing parts of your lives you may have wished to have kept private.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“My father tells his stories. I’ve heard them before. I know his pauses. His inflections. But I let him tell them over again. Someday, I think, I’ll be happy I did.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“As she looks through the photos, she says quietly, “We had a lot of happy times together. I hope you remember some of them.”

When I tell Brian stories about my life, he sees them differently from the way I do. He doesn’t see the loss. He sees the opportunity. The adventure.

In front of my mother, he says to me, “No wonder you have so many cool stories,” and she says, “Thank you for saying that, Brian!”

For the first time, I start to see my life in a new way. I start to see the opportunity, too. But I’m sad as I watch my mother tell him our stories. I worry that she thinks I hate her, that I won’t remember our better days, her best attempts to give me the happiest possible life.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“He seems sad, and it occurs to me that we have a certain kind of loneliness in common.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“It’s not even 8:00 a.m., and I’ve already had my trombone stolen. I fucking hate seventh grade.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I ask for tons of notebooks for my birthday, the ones with college ruled lines, and I carry them with me, pretend they're my friends, and write anything that comes to mind. Something about my stories makes me happy, allows me to drift away a bit.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“We met in a school elevator, and he could tell from the way I spoke that we had some sadness in common.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I’d like them to appreciate the power of the individual—and I don’t mean me; I mean the power each person has to make choices and be accountable for himself or herself. I’ve noticed that people are quick to put you in a category—if you come from this place then you are that thing. But I’ve never placed much value in statistics and trends, bar graphs and socioeconomic data that sum people up. I stop listening when somebody asks me if I know what my chances are. I don’t know that I believe in probability. People are inexplicable and incomprehensible, and nobody really knows what’s possible until they try. I prefer the exceptions to the rules. I like people who try, even when their chances are zero.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“Now and then I see a balloon caught in the power lines, holding on, waving, flapping softly in the evening air, and I wonder if somebody in some faraway city tried to send it to heaven the way my mother and I used to do.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“Sometimes I think, Was she thinking about me when she was drinking? Did any of them ever think about me when they were putting straws in their noses and needles in their arms? Did they even think about me once?”

And she asks me, “What would it mean if they didn’t?”

I stare at her, trembling. She knows what I think it means, and she wants me to say it out loud.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I look away from her.
“I have felt like an old man my whole life. And they get to have fun and snort their fucking drugs and get wasted and it doesn’t matter who they’re hurting because they’re young and having fun and I’m a judgmental prick if I say anything.”
“Do you think they’re having fun?”
I don’t have an answer for her.
“I’ll never be able to compete against it.”
“Maybe you don’t understand how powerful it is,” she says.
“How powerful is it?”
“Very.”
“And that’s an excuse?”
“No.”
“When do they get to take responsibility?”
“For themselves?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Always,” she says.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I overhear kids in my classes talking about frat parties—Omigod Michelle so lost her phone at the club!—and they sound fun, but I don’t make any friends during college. I don’t have sex, even though I’m supposed to. I write and I study and I daydream myself into a life I’m not sure will ever be possible. And I spend the in-between hours fighting the doubt that inevitably creeps in to remind me of who I am.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“She’s been talking nonstop since five a.m.,” my brother says. “Like, I’m not exaggerating—nonstop. I even timed her at one point.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“And the dreams I’ve kept for so long to myself, the ones I lose myself in when I work my new job—the day shift at Red Lobster—are starting to do nothing but remind me how small I am. And time keeps barreling on. Birthdays arrive suddenly, unwelcome, like the end of summer.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“His adopted dad is white and Jewish, giving him full access to black jokes, white jokes, and Jewish jokes. “You’re so lucky,” I say. He knows.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I look around. Everybody else is wearing boxer shorts. Everybody. Checkered ones and striped ones and cool skater brands like Joe Boxer and Volcom. And I’m wearing tightie-whities with a colorful photo of Professor X in his wheelchair shooting a blue laser beam out of his forehead.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“She asks to see my diploma, holds it in her hands and smiles, reads it out loud before handing it back to me, and I hold it tightly on my lap, this piece of paper, the proof they won't find me dead on a couch on my thirty-eighth birthday or in some basement bathtub with my eyes wide and lifeless or alone in the bed I slept in as a child with a Baggie of white powder under my mattress.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon

“I think about failure a lot lately. Staring out of city bus windows at the passing streetlights. Scanning bar codes. Making chitchat with customers. I think about it. I’m afraid it’s in my blood. And time’s going by so quickly now. Somewhere between the motel rooms and minimum-wage jobs, between sleep and sitcoms, switching schools and dying relatives, I became an adult. But I don’t feel like much of one. I just feel lost in this city, carrying my dog’s ashes around with me, talking to ghosts, and working jobs that make my small dreams feel like the punch line to a very long joke.”
― Kenny Porpora, The Autumn Balloon