The Last Orphan Quotes

“If you have to be hit over the head to learn something about yourself, you’ll be someone who thinks that people only learn if you hit them over the head.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“When you get stuck, remember that you can deal with physical issues intellectually and intellectual issues emotionally. You can work out emotional issues psychologically and psychological issues spiritually. Those are the spokes of the wheel—one breaks, you can use another to fix it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“A diamond’s just a lump of coal that knows how to deal with pressure.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“I usually find,” Evan said, “that people will show you how they want to be treated if you pay attention.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“for Rachel Maddow against crazed right-wingers.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“When young women are killed, no one seems to remember their names.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Being understood?” She shook her head. “Men want to find someone who understands them. Women know they’ll never be understood.” She took out another cigarette, sniffed it, stuffed it back in the pack. “No. They want to be known. It’s different. It’s … hmm, intimacy. And when you have a child, the fierceness of feeling …” She shook her head, at a loss before the infinite. “I’m sure you had that from your parents.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“I broke up with him because I realized I’m borderline and a nightmare to deal with.’ But Colby? Supremely limited. It’s like, dude, I get it that you think all I really want to hear is how beautiful I am, but the thing is I already know that I have pleasingly symmetrical features and the whole flush-of-youth thing going for me, so it only shows your own failure of imagination when you fall for the evolutionary fitness mask when I’m right here beneath it and I’m so much more and if you weren’t busy bragging about my looks, you would’ve realized I am the best resource you could ever think to have.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“zoologists believed them to be evolutionarily derived from legs.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“The best people are the worst people,” Echo continued. “All that sensitivity and insight focused on you—the real you. It’s like they know what chords to tap deep down to make you … resonate. With yourself, the world. But then once you let them in”—her expression darkened—“they can hit those same chords with a mallet. And make you vibrate so hard you think you might come apart.” There were big round tears in her lashes, and she blinked and blinked, but they wouldn’t fall. “It’s almost not worth it. Opening up. Do you know what I mean?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Don’t surround yourself with like-minded people. You’ll get limited or radicalized.” “By what?” Jack looks irritated-amused, one of his go-to settings. “Who the hell knows? The news, the community, the military-industrial complex. The only hope is to stay open to all perspectives as they come in.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“There is a generational Seabrookian root-beer-float debate. A&W. Or Mug."
"I don't drink root-beer-floats," Evan said.
"Oh, shut up.”
― Gregg Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“He filled all four glasses with Mug and handed them around. He caught his daughter’s eye, hoisted his drink for a toast. “Root-beer truce.” “Root-beer truce,” she said, and they all clinked. Evan took a sip. It was one of the finest things he had ever tasted. Almost as good as vodka. But also: sugary.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“I’ve reached the age where what I see in the mirror is unrecognizable as a body that would ever belong to me.” “You look fine.” “I am clothed.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“She felt guilty about how long she ran the shower given how far some African women had to walk with a forty-pound jug for water collection. Guilty when takeout arrived in Styrofoam boxes that she knew took five hundred years to decompose. Guilty about buying a seven-dollar cappuccino when that was half the average hourly wage for workers in America.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Men want to find someone who understands them. Women know they’ll never be understood.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“On the TV a Hallmark Channel logo popped up briefly. Now the couple were at some sort of festival outside a barn among townsfolk sporting an array of holiday sweaters. Everything soft and warm and soothing like a not-too-hot bath.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“I’m having sandwich-ratio problems. Ya know, where the fixings get outta whack and you can’t get all the good stuff into the same bite. Don’t you hate that?”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“It wasn’t the first time Evan had drunk vodka atop a glacier.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Don’t surround yourself with like-minded people. You’ll get limited or radicalized.” “By”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“You know what heaven would be for me now?” Evan looked down at the table. In the mound of loose puzzle pieces, he made out a bright blue eye—Johnny’s. “To see him for one minute more doing something mundane,” Deborah said. “Something I never bothered to pay attention to. Eating an apple. Picking at his dirty fingernails. To watch him watching TV. That’s all heaven is. It was right there, every instant of my life before. And I couldn’t see it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Don’t surround yourself with like-minded people. You’ll get limited or radicalized.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“astute.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Our beliefs have no time to age.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“Mason had that made,” Deborah said of the puzzle. “One of those custom ones. He wanted Ruby to be able to put the family back together again. Thought it would be … hmm, therapeutic. But it just sits there. And sits there.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“To love like that, it’s a kind of ache,” she continued. “Because you hate every bad thing the world could ever hold for them. And you hurt for them all the way through even when nothing’s happened yet.” A single tear clung to the tip of her nose, a perfect jewel. “And how many times does it not happen? The fall from the tree house. Choking on undercooked bacon. The not-too-bad car crash. And then? One day it does. And it’s like you’ve been braced for it your whole life.” Her voice lowered with a kind of awe. “But it’s so much worse than anything you could have imagined. It makes you rethink hell. And heaven. You know what heaven would be for me now?” Evan looked down at the table. In the mound of loose puzzle pieces, he made out a bright blue eye—Johnny’s. “To see him for one minute more doing something mundane,” Deborah said. “Something I never bothered to pay attention to. Eating an apple. Picking at his dirty fingernails. To watch him watching TV. That’s all heaven is. It was right there, every instant of my life before. And I couldn’t see it.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“And I could see the world with all its terribleness everywhere around me.” She studied him. “I’d imagine you see that now and again. With your work.” “Yes.” “People at their most naked? Their most real?” “I don’t see people any other way.” “What a blessing.” He did not respond. “And how lonely.” He said nothing. “That is unless you have someone to look into you that way, too,” Deborah said. “That’s the most powerful thing.” “Being understood?” She shook her head. “Men want to find someone who understands them. Women know they’ll never be understood.” She took out another cigarette, sniffed it, stuffed it back in the pack. “No. They want to be known. It’s different. It’s … hmm, intimacy. And when you have a child, the fierceness of feeling…” She shook her head, at a loss before the infinite. “I’m sure you had that from your parents.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan

“It’s like, dude, I get it that you think all I really want to hear is how beautiful I am, but the thing is I already know that I have pleasingly symmetrical features and the whole flush-of-youth thing going for me, so it only shows your own failure of imagination when you fall for the evolutionary fitness mask when I’m right here beneath it and I’m so much more and if you weren’t busy bragging about my looks, you would’ve realized I am the best resource you could ever think to have.” Evan’s next bite of skewered fowl hovered a few inches from his plate. “Poor Colby.” “Right. Side with him.” Ruby gave Evan a little backhanded thwap with her knuckles, her easy affection disarming. “And they’re all like that.” I even tried one of those wholesome-ish dating apps, but I kept matching with guys named Caden who want to chill and hang but don’t have any money to go out. Great. Thanks, dating apps. Something to make males of the species more lazy and indecisive.” Her thumb flick-flick-flicked. “Arty Caden. Try-Hard Caden. Jock Caden.” She held the phone sideways. “At least Jock Caden is kinda cute.”
― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, The Last Orphan