Dirtbag, Massachusetts Quotes

“I think about the parable of the little girl and the starfish told to me by a grandparent, though I can’t remember which. A young girl walks along a beach on which thousands of starfish have washed up during a terrible storm. She begins picking up the starfish, one by one, and throwing them back into the sea. An old man walks down to the beach and asks the young girl, “Why are you doing this? Look at how many starfish there are. You cannot possibly begin to make a difference.” The girl pays the man no mind and picks up another starfish and throws it back into the waves. Then she says to the old man, “It made a difference to that one.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Which is to say, some days you are happy to be alive, and you know you’ll never forget the feeling or lose the knack. And other days you do forget; you do lose it. Nothing happens in order, and you have to do it over and over again.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“But that’s the thing about hells: Comparing them does not lead you to the exit door of your own. Even as I grew older, matured, found somewhat more stable relationships, even as my weight fluctuated, my sense of self never did.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“When you can’t talk about something, you’re prevented from naming and describing it, from making it real. And what you can’t name and describe and make real becomes infinite and limitless and impossible to decipher or resolve because it can expand to fill your whole life and self to its tiniest corners or it can shrink to nothing; nothing being the size of things that are not real. You are alone—with it, with yourself. With this unsolvable problem.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Because this is a story about loving the place that made you, even if it wasn’t the place you were raised. And whether you’re one-and-done or you’re on a bender doing a wraparound, you always come back to the ones you love.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Everybody mentions how kind I am. They always have, even when I was a child. Later, as an adult, I got regular praise for being “polite” and “nice,” though there were others, from time to time, who saw that kindness as weakness. Which … in a way … it may have been. But not in the way those people thought it was. It’s hard to be anything but kind or nice when you’ve been raised on a steady dose of religion and abuse. The principle of turning the other cheek embodied in the physical act of turning one’s cheek, the other stinging from your father’s slap, water from the showerhead raining down on your body. “You’re so polite.” “Thanks, it was beaten into me.” Not the response anybody wants to hear. So I don’t give it. See? Polite.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“We learned, we listened, we kept our mouths shut, we fucked up, and somewhere along the way we managed to show that certain kinds of conversations might not be wasted on us. The chance to grow like that is something you earn; it is also a tremendous gift, given to you by others with astonishing generosity, especially when you consider that they have no idea what they’ll get back.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“I owe so much to sex workers when it comes to being more open about sex. About knowing how to talk about sex. And my understanding of consent—not just the idea of consent, but the practice. How to respond correctly to a no or “Cut!” or a safe word, which is to say: Never, ever less than fully and immediately. How to discuss the sex you’re about to have, even if you feel embarrassed or awkward talking about it. How to identify all the ways in which people coerce or pressure or push—sometimes without consciously knowing it—and not do those things. And how to have a conversation with a partner about what I want, and ask them the same. If society protected, respected, listened to, and learned from sex workers—well, then, sex education might actually stand a chance of being useful. And we all might be a little better at having those important conversations. Those difficult conversations, possibly even the ones that aren’t about sex. Because in the end, what I’m talking about is communication. Feeling safe. Knowing how to state, clearly, what you are feeling, and maybe even why. Imagine if violent homes came with safe words. Everybody stop. Hands on your head. Quiet on the set, please.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“There are many ways to help, many ways to hurt, and many ways to do both, but there is no way to be perfect. The blinding clarity of the sword and the shield is marvelous and bracing, but I could never truly accept it.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“My friendship with Connor was one of those friendships you know is going to be special from the moment you meet the other person, even if the actual specialness doesn’t come right away. For a while, it’s just both of you standing around waiting to be the true friends you’re meant to be, until there’s that moment of connection that changes everything. In”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“The woman stopped. For the first time,”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Both of us are stunned. Both of us are horrified. The abuse has yielded more abuse. The anger is there. Has always been there. But now the lesson of violence has been fully learned. How could this house not be haunted?”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Most importantly, I can’t deny that there’s something pretty great about making a dedicated space—just one hour a week out of your life—to express gratitude for what the universe has given you, to apologize for the ways in which you have wronged yourself and others, and to be present and around people, both familiar and strangers alike. My time in that space has shaped my entire”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“or the books I had read as child”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“was”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Do you want to meet Katherine?” he asked. She lived in Cambridge, her husband a wealthy man. Apparently my father was still chasing the dream of marrying rich, even while being very much married. They’d met at school. Sound familiar? I remember thinking how cruel my grandparents were to judge my father so harshly. But now that I’m an adult, well—I can see that they had their points. Back then, all I knew was that Katherine smelled nice and that she wasn’t crying, and that she gave me Oreos and cold milk and played basketball with me. Her house was big, and there were no bugs in it, at least not that I saw. She showed me her new child, a baby, and I held him.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Being the captive audience at the men’s evil bullshit parade nearly every time I sat down for a haircut sucked. What also sucked was that I wasn’t just sitting and watching the spectacle go by—this was their way of holding a hand out, inviting me to jump on the float. I felt implicated, because somehow I was.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“I know that for the rest of my life I will, from time to time, think that the world would be better off without me. But it’s happening less as I get older. I will always be trying to stop wondering what exactly I am good for, to instead make peace with the fact that I deserve to be alive and, from that more calm and steady place, will be better able to wrestle with what I can do for myself and others without needing the crutch of certainty.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Both were smart, itchy, unsteady people who had read too many books, if such a thing is possible, and I’m pretty sure it is.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“When I told my ma that, I remember her laughing, a certain low and gently rueful laugh she’s had her whole life, which I’m sure was appreciated by the Cathedral priests and anyone else who has ever needed to hear a laugh perfect for when things are so hopeless that they’re also a little bit funny. “More”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Help was what I needed; also, help was what I needed to be able to give in order to feel anything other than this inward-looking grayness. It’d been a minute since I’d actually helped anyone, done any work to clearly and unambiguously contribute to someone’s well-being. It had been a minute since I’d actually been of use.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“I remember the day I gave away my motorcycle. I awoke with a start that morning, not knowing where I was, then realizing I was in my own bedroom, then being relieved, then being overcome by a strange and inescapable wrongness. My mind felt both filthy and purified, heavy with hangover, all memories of the weekend wiped clean”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“We’re at a Stuarts in Athol, Massachusetts.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“Most days I drive my mother’s three-colored car (all different shades of blue) to Gardner, Massachusetts, the closest town with any downtown to speak of, where I have a job at a Friendly’s washing dishes.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

“The miracle of even trying when failure and ignominy haunt your steps.”
― Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional