Prodigal Son Quotes

“Every time I consider myself an adult, I think back five years to when I also thought of myself as an adult. And I’m aghast at how staggeringly blind I was. Maybe what I hold to be true right now will seem just as ignorant when I reflect back on it years from now.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Maybe that’s all growing up is. Knowing in real time that you don’t know anything.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“And I may not have the standing to tell you this, but I want you to know I’m proud of you. I see you, and I’m proud of you.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“The Unofficial Eleventh Commandment: Don’t fall in love with Plan A.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“The hardest part of trying to become an adult is realizing that your suffering doesn’t entitle you to anything.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan said, “It looks nice.” She turned back, beaming, her face colored with delight. “Thank you.” In the aftermath of her departure, he breathed her lingering perfume and thought about how little it had taken to impart that much joy. She’d felt noticed. At the end of the day, maybe that was all anyone wanted.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan heard the passenger door close before he noticed that Andre had climbed out. He watched him walk into the building, pulling his shoulders back, lifting his head with an assumed air of dignity.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“So you disappeared. Never called.” “It’s not like we were engaged.” “True,” Evan said. “But you took your own insecurity and put it on her. That weakens her. And it weakens you. You treat a young woman like that with respect. If nothing else it’ll teach you about yourself, teach you who you want to be whenever you’re ready to be that person. Understand?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“When she’d placed her hand on his cheek, looked into him, and released him to do what it was that he did, she’d seen him for the first time, not the image of who she hoped him to be. Simple as it sounded, perhaps that was what love really was.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“He could see her extraordinariness only when he considered the fullness of who she was, not just the shape of who he wanted her to be.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan thought about when he’d worked on Joey’s shoulder, how it had been tender to the point of intolerability. It struck him that the same law of physics applied to any injury, physical or emotional. If you babied it, it stiffened even more, spreading the pain through you. But if you yielded, if you were willing to endure the white-hot agony of making vulnerable what you sought to protect, you had a shot at releasing it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“The party?” She gave a sad little laugh. “I guess … I guess I wanted the attention.” The sentence hung in the air between them, an ugly little confession that was also somehow graceful in its honesty.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“That was what kids were supposed to do: say how they felt and have fun and create joy before life wore them down and dulled their clarity. Joey had never had that chance, and neither had Evan.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan flashed on Peter sitting on the couch in his dead father’s dress shirt—I don’t have anyone to be proud of me—and the image about wrecked him. How could a kid that fundamentally good ever have to wonder if he was good enough for someone to be proud of?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan said, “Can I help you get that?” “No.” “You need to learn to accept help.” “Why? You never do.” Evan said, “So you can teach me.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“You are safe. You are loved. After she’d conveyed this memory to Evan, she’d stared at him, her eyes glimmering, and said, Can you imagine?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Dog tilted his head up to slurp the underside of Evan’s chin. Joey scowled. “I meant real life without…” “Responsibility?” “I didn’t say that!” She considered. “But yeah.” “Responsibility’s where you find meaning”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“His mother’s gaze held the totality of him. It was the only place he’d ever seen it reflected. She was the mirror by which he might be able to know himself.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Maybe that’s what intimacy was, a discomfort like the burning he’d felt in his chest when Joey had told him she could take care of herself. A sense of dread at what could go wrong, a stifling of fear, a baring of the vulnerable self to the judgment of someone else. The jagged edge of one soul meeting another, tearing and rending, a connection and a diminishment both. All that imperfection, all that friction—it wore down the tread, expending rather than preserving. What if that was the point? To expend ourselves in the care of people who mattered? Without that, what was there to preserve?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Maybe happiness is overrated,” Evan said. “Freedom, too. Maybe the only way to get anywhere worth being is to pick up the heaviest thing you can carry. And carry it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“lives and now they’re full, brimming with life, with triumph. And you’re outside, right? You don’t know this game. You don’t give a shit. But you envy them being so goddamned alive, for knowing what they care about and what they want and for trying to get at it. For being in it, man. And you’re just sitting there watching.” Andre’s voice grew hoarse. “When you’re like us, that’s how everything feels sometimes.” Evan caught the words before they came out. I’m not like you. Andre said, “You’re never jealous of folks like that? People who can just be … you know, happy.” “You think happiness is the point?” “Of what?” “Of life.” “Ain’t it?” Evan shrugged. “I don’t know if you can build anything on it.” “What do you build on, then?” “Responsibility,” Evan said. “Duty.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“There’s nothing more dangerous than thinking you’re a victim.” Andre snorted. “Ain’t that some shit. How ’bout the people who want to kill my ass? They more dangerous’n me?” “They think they’re victims, too,” Evan said. “That’s where it gets you.” “Listen to your judgmental ass.” “Without judgment,” Evan said, “we’ve got nowhere to go.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“And to survive you had to shut off parts of yourself, what you felt, what you reacted to. God, what do I know? Maybe it was all projection. My own broken heart mapped onto a newborn.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“And she was worried that … that she could be expecting. And she stayed with me, and she took those damn tests every day, like playing a lottery you don’t want to win. But sure enough she won. And even though this was a child born of violence, it was still a child. People don’t always understand that these days. It’s not some political statement, but it’s different when it happens to you, I suppose. And she decided she wanted to bring this child to term.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“As the Second Commandment decreed, How you do anything is how you do everything.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Evan nodded, chewed his lip. “Let me be clear. I’m a nice guy by choice.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“She said, “It’s important you know that you were wanted.” He cut the connection, threw the phone onto the bed, and stared at it, breathing hard, his shoulders heaving. It hadn’t occurred to him to want to be wanted.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“For Marshall Herskovitz From whom I learned that the top of the alpha dominance hierarchy is still beneath the lowest level of what constitutes wisdom”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“And you’re outside, right? You don’t know this game. You don’t give a shit. But you envy them being so goddamned alive, for knowing what they care about and what they want and for trying to get at it. For being in it, man. And you’re just sitting there watching.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son

“Maybe the only way to get anywhere worth being is to pick up the heaviest thing you can carry. And carry it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, Prodigal Son