Now Is Not the Time to Panic Quotes

“And then I got older, and, guess what? I still never felt right inside my body. I don't think I ever will. I was kind of flamed out everywhere I went, always got a little less than what I thought I'd get. But I guess that's okay. I think maybe it's necessary to feel like you're not quite settled, or maybe for some people it's necessary.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I guess I just mean that sometimes your mom says that things will be better for you in the future. And I think they will, Frankie. I think you're really smart and I think you'll do fine. But I also think it's not so bad if you never quite feel right in this world. It's still worth hanging around. You just have to look harder to find the things you love."
"Okay," I said. I kind of wanted to hug him.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“To be a teenager, it takes very little to think that someone else might actually know who you are, even as you spend all your time thinking that no one understands you. It's such a lovely feeling.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“Real obsession, if you did it right, was the same intensity every single time, a kind of electrocution that kept your heart beating in time. It was so good.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“And I know, in that moment, that my life is real, because there’s a line from this moment all the way back to that summer, when I was sixteen, when the whole world opened up and I walked through it.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“We’d created meaning where there was none, but, I don’t know, isn’t that art? Or at least I think it’s the kind of art that I like, where the obsession of one person envelops other people, transforms them.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I just... you are the most beautiful and wonderful and strangest person I have ever met. You are the most amazing person in the world. And you just have to live long enough to make the rest of the world understand that, okay? You have to stay alive.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic: A Novel

“You are going to have such an amazing life, Frankie,” he told me. “If this is how it starts? It’s almost breathtaking how good your life will be.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I wondered if that was kind of the purpose of art, maybe, to make you see things that you knew but couldn’t say out loud.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I wondered if this was a sign that, whatever happened this summer, I’d be the one with a scar.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“…I started grabbing everything I could find and I had no idea what other people thought was good or what was important. And so I almost never told anyone what I liked because I was terrified that they would tell me how stupid it was. Every single thing that you loved became the source of both intense obsession and possible shame. Everything was a secret.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“Here’s the thing, sweetie. If you love something, you can’t think too much about what went into making it or the circumstances around it. You just have to, I don’t know, love the thing as it is. And then it’s just for you, right?”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I want to be an artist," he told me, like we were both admitting that we weren't human. We didn't understand how normal this was, to be young, to believe that you were destined to make beautiful things.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“maybe it was dumb to be embarrassed about weird things if you were really good at them. Or not good. If they made you happy.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I know everyone,” I said, gesturing to the entire congregation of poolgoers. “I know them all. I just don’t like them.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“I don't know if that's love, to need the sensations produced by the body more than the body itself. Not the kiss, but the taste of celery that came after. Not his hands, but the sound of his hands making art. Not the fact that he was here only for this summer, but the fact that I might find reminders of him in surprising places for the rest of my life.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“But I also think it’s not so bad if you never quite feel right in this world. It’s still worth hanging around. You just have to look harder to find the things you love.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“But I was sixteen. I lived inside of myself way more than I lived inside of this town.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“Oh, but really, truly, I loved Carolyn Keene. I loved Nancy Drew books.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“She showed it to Hobart, who also loved it, and it made me feel, for the first time, that maybe it was dumb to be embarrassed about weird things if you were really good at them. Or not good. If they made vou happy.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“And even then, sixteen years old, I knew that I would hate every person in my life who loved me, who took care of me, who helped me find a way to whatever life I would have, because I could never tell them who I was, what I’d done.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“The whole experience felt like what drugs must have felt like. It was the high of doing something weird, not knowing the outcome.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“As we drank our Ocean Waters, these horrible and wonderful blue coconut sodas served in an insulated cup so huge that if you drank all of it at once, you would fall into a coma from the sugar.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“This little group of men, a very very sad militia, who would drink beer and then patrol the streets and tear down the posters and make a dinky little fire and sit around it and feel like they were protecting the town. And they were loud as hell, and they got winded walking too much, so then they’d jump into their trucks, and the police started assigning a patrol car just to make sure that they didn’t shoot anyone, and so it was fairly easy to navigate all of this. And we mostly did it in the daytime, when no one cared, when no one saw us.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“Maybe it was better to be ugly if the alternative was to be plain.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“You’ve done something, and it is going to change our lives, whether I want it to or not, and I don’t really know how to express how freaking mad I am about it.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“She showed it to Hobart, who also loved it, and it made me feel, for the first time, that maybe it was dumb to be embarrassed about weird things if you were really good at them. Or not good. If they made you happy.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“When I was done making copies, I put my hand on the glass and made a single copy of my palm. I looked at the lines, wished I knew how to read them. I wanted to know what my future was, because in that moment, I could not imagine a future at all. I could not imagine how in the world I would keep this secret for the rest of my life. But I knew I would. And even then, sixteen years old, I knew that I would hate every person in my life who loved me, who took care of me, who helped me find a way to whatever life I would have, because I could never tell them who I was, what I'd done.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“Honey, I’ve been to Graceland. It’s, you know, smaller than you think. It’s really garish, but it’s not worth driving that far to see it. I mean . . . he’s no Jackson Browne.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic

“we were watching Jackson Browne on VH1 Storytellers, a singer she loved so much, she had taped it earlier in the summer and would watch it while she drank a beer at the end of the day. Right after “Doctor My Eyes,” her favorite song, I asked her if I could go with Zeke to Memphis.”
― Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic