The Imperfectionists Quotes

“What I really fear is time. That's the devil: whipping us on when we'd rather loll, so the present sprints by, impossible to grasp, and all is suddenly past, a past that won't hold still, that slides into these inauthentic tales. My past- it doesn't feel real in the slightest. The person who inhabited it is not me. It's as if the present me is constantly dissolving. There's that line from Heraclitus: 'No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.' That's quite right. We enjoy this illusion of continuity, and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“You know, there's that silly saying 'We're born alone and we die alone' -it's nonsense. We're surrounded at birth and surrounded at death. It is in between that we're alone.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“You can’t dread what you can’t experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. That’s as bad as it gets. And that’s bad enough, surely.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“If history has taught us anything, Arthur muses, it is that men with mustaches must never achieve positions of power.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as “literally” did not happen at all. As in, “He literally jumped out of his skin.” No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I’d suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one. Inserting “literally” willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom. Eliminate on sight—the usage, not the nitwits. The nitwits are to be captured”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“She is a wonderful nerd, and he hopes this won't change.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“...looking back, has this journalism experience been a nightmare for you?'
'Not entirely.'
'Did you enjoy any of it?'
'I liked going to the library,' he says. 'I think I prefer books to people -- primary sources scare me.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying that you want nothing for people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives -- to feel like saints, probably. ... But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition. Whatever its ills, nothing has created more. Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life. But the love of man to be worshiped by man.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Journalism is a bunch of dorks pretending to be alpha males.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“They had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“I got myself into a tangle. I tied myself in knots. I built and I built–heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“She doesn't remember the twentieth century. Isn't that terrifying?”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Nothing epitomizes the futility of human striving quite like aspartame.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“One becomes more of a shit as one gets older.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists....”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Anything that's worth anything is complicated.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Good reporting and good behavior are mutually exclusive.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“She has been dreading tomorrow ever since it happened the first time.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“...news' is often a polite way of saying 'editor's whim.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“There's a line from Heraclitus: No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“When, she wonders, do people have time to contemplate anything? But she has no time to answer that.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“I say that ambition is absurd, and yet I remain in its thrall. It’s like being a slave all your life, then learning one day that you never had a master, and returning to work all the same.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“This is good for my ego after, like, two years of seeing Italian guys in pink sweaters and orange pants and, like, pulling it off. You know what I’m saying?”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“You have to understand, Annika, that I have pretty much resigned myself to spinsterhood since, I don't know, since approximately my entire life. But just because I act chirpy about it doesn't mean that I'm chirpy about it. You have Menzies. Me? I dread weekends. How depressing is that? I wish I didn't have vacation time-I have no idea what to do with it. I don't have anyone to go anywhere with. Look at me-I'm practically forty and I still resemble Pippi Longstocking.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“It occurs to me that I've been wrong about something: I always assumed that age and experience weather you, make you more resilient. But that's not true. It's the opposite.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists

“Don't people drown their sorrows in things like scotch? Not strawberry whatever-it's-called.”
― Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists