Tragedy Plus Time Quotes

“Overt displays of emotion embarrassed me. That’s why I turned away at the beach in North Carolina to cry. That’s why I kept it together until I reached my hotel room in Grand Rapids. This thing I was carrying around with me was my burden. I didn’t need any outside observers. At the same time, I had to share it because to not do so felt so dishonest. Maybe this was because I am a Gemini. Maybe it was because my mother was a dry introvert while my father was the most outgoing person in the room. Maybe that’s why after spouting off for forty-five minutes from a stage like the life of the goddamn party, I have the hardest time making small talk with anyone that comes up to me. I want every eye in the room on me and then I want everyone to leave me alone. The same was true of what I was writing about Lydia. I wanted everyone to know how I felt but I also didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.”
― Adam Cayton-Holland, Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-comic Memoir

“The public schools in my neighborhood were shit so I had to go Graland Country Day School, a neo-Fascist lacrosse factory in the form of a K–9, a place so pretentious it actually existed in a neighborhood called Hilltop. At Graland the progeny of emotionally distant businessmen and their manic-depressive trophy wives gathered on a daily basis to perfect their pronunciation of the word “faggot” while sowing the seeds of future opiate addictions.”
― Adam Cayton-Holland, Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-comic Memoir