When I run, I always pretend I am running toward Nikki, and it makes me feel like I am decreasing the amount of time I have to wait until I see her again.
Matthew QuickPeople can be cruel,' he says with a sympathetic look that makes me trust him even more. And right then I realize that he is not writing down all my words in a file, which I really appreciate, let me tell you.
Matthew QuickIn my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on, and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer field with me - in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus.
Matthew QuickYou can lose yourself in repetitionโquiet your thoughts; I learned the value of this at a very young age.
Matthew QuickShe looks sad. She looks angry. She looks different from everyone else I knowโshe cannot put on that happy face others wear when they know they are being watched. She doesnโt put on a face for me, which makes me trust her somehow.
Matthew QuickInstead he thinks up the worst ending imaginable: Hemingway has Catherine die from hemorrhaging after their child is stillborn. It is the most torturous ending I have ever experienced and probably will ever experience in literature, movies, or even television. I am crying so hard at the end, partly for the characters, yes, but also because Nikki actually teaches this book to children. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to expose impressionable teenagers to such a horrible ending. Why not just tell high school students that their struggle to improve themselves is all for nothing?
Matthew Quick