Nick Miller Quotes

Light is always more beautiful when it has to fight to be noticed, like sunlight fighting through the clouds after a rainstorm.

Beauty is not always as perfect as we imagine it to be, but it can be damn close if we learn to accept the scary parts or the ugly parts.

…I’m someone who’s mostly dead inside but still has a little hope for something extraordinary, which, as I said, is the worst breed of human, because it means I know everything is bullshit, but that I secretly hope for the day when it might not be.

Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was.

Travel is little beds and cramped bathrooms. It’s old television sets and slow Internet connections. Travel is extraordinary conversations with ordinary people. It’s waiters, gas station attendants, and housekeepers becoming the most interesting people in the world. It’s churches that are compelling enough to enter. It’s McDonald’s being a luxury. It’s the realization that you may have been born in the wrong country. Travel is a smile that leads to a conversation in broken English. It’s the epiphany that pretty girls smile the same way all over the world. Travel is tipping 10% and being embraced for it. Travel is the same white T-shirt again tomorrow. Travel is accented sex after good wine and too many unfiltered cigarettes. Travel is flowing in the back of a bus with giggly strangers. It’s a street full of bearded backpackers looking down at maps. Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was. It’s the rediscovery of walking somewhere. It’s sharing a bottle of liquor on an overnight train with a new friend. Travel is “Maybe I don’t have to do it that way when I get back home.” It’s nostalgia for studying abroad that one semester. Travel is realizing that “age thirty” should be shed of its goddamn stigma.

I'd begun to grow weary of my constant daydreaming because, as I retreated more often into fantasy, it had become a reminder of my growing discontent with real life. And my thoughts, after very little sleep, seemed to float even further into the realm of the superfluous.

I feel like I’m just passing through life. But then there’s this voice in my head telling me to do something, to create something, to make something, and I want to listen to it, but I don’t know how. I want to be able to say something, but I have nothing to say. I want something extraordinary, but I’m ordinary in every way—I just read books about other people and browse the lives of my Facebook friends all day.

Some people are good at being in love. Some people are good at love. Two very different things, I think. Being in love is the romantic part—sex all the time, midday naps in the sheets, the jokes, the laughs, the fun, long conversations with no pauses, overwhelming separation anxiety … Just the best sides of both people, you know? But love begins when the excitement of being in love starts to fade: the stress of life sets in, the butterflies disappear, the sex becomes a chore, the tears, the sadness, the arguments, the cattiness … The worst parts of both people. But if you still want that person by your side through all of those things … that’s when you know—that’s when you know you’re good at love.

I know now that truth is a troubling thing. You can't drink your way to it. You can't snort your way to it. You can't fuck your way to it. You can't love your way to it. You can only let it envelop you and try to make sense of it all.

See, I’m the worst breed of human. Let me explain. Some people are dead inside. They go through life knowing this, and they manage fine enough, because, well, they’re dead inside. They aren’t bitter because they don’t care enough to change. They just try to get by with the things they can control. Others live in the fucking clouds, watch romantic comedies, and dream about everything being perfect one day. These people are always fine because they have an everlasting well of hope inside them, and no matter what happens they’ll just romanticize their existence. But when it comes to me…I’m someone who’s mostly dead inside but still has a little hope for something extraordinary, which, as I said, is the worst breed of human, because it means that I know everything is bullshit, but that I secretly hope for the day when it might not be. The tension makes me wish I were just completely dead inside. It would makes things much easier for me.

A half-open window. Morning-fresh air carries curious sunlight into a bedroom. Flecks of dust shimmer yellow-gold. Four feet, entwined under white sheets. Joni's Blue, on the player. Delicate curtains slow-dance to Sunday's tune. Laughter. Talk of: what for breakfast? Anything. Anything at all.

An awfulness was deep inside me, and I couldn't fight it; forced into submission and taken hostage by it, I could only just lie there, let it wash over me, and let myself be consumed by it. If I cooperate, maybe it won't stay too long; maybe it'll let me go free. But if I fight it, it might stay longer just to spite me. So I decided to let The Feeling inhabit me as long as it desired, while I lay still, cautious not to incite me, secretly hoping it would leave me soon and bother someone else, but outwardly, pretending to be its gracious host. The most discouraging element of what I felt was my inability to understand it. Usually when I was filled with an unpleasant feeling, I could make it go away, or at least tame it, by watching a light-hearted film or reading a good book or listening to a feel good album. But this feeling was different. I knew non of those distractions could rid me of it. But I knew nothing else. I couldn't even describe it. Is this depression? Maybe once you ask someone to describe depression, he can't find the words. Maybe I'm part of the official club now. I imagined myself in a room full of people where someone in the crowd, also suffering from depression, immediately noticed me-as if he detected the scent of his own kind-walked over, and looked into my eyes. He knew that I had The Feeling inside me because he, too, da The Feeling inside him. He didn't ask me to talk about it, because he understood that our type of suffering was ineffable. He only nodded at me, and I nodded back; and then, during our moment of silence, we both shared a sad smile of recognition, knowing that we only had each other in a room filled with people who would never understand us, because they didn't have The Feeling inside them.

Every person I have a conversation with now runs a chance of being fictionalized.

I told him I’m not sleeping with him. I’m not that easy,” she says. “Still, he invites me to Vegas and tells me he’ll get me my own private suite, and that I could invite my girlfriends. So, I mean, my girlfriends and I obviously decide to go. When we get there, he lets us go shopping with his credit card. So we bought new clothes, facials, massages, purses, everything! Then we joined him and his friends for dinner … Our dinner bill was, like—can you believe this?—$30,000! It was all the wine, appetizers, entrees, desserts, and champagne. The next week, I ignored his phone calls. I mean, I can’t be bought.

Do you really feel that out of place, that lonely? Because I feel that lonely, too. Sometimes I feel like I’m just watching my daily life play out on a giant projection screen, while I’m living my real life in my head, or something. I don’t know. If I was in a room with a thousand people, I’d still feel alone.

but to write it well and write the time well, you must learn to love your subjects to their core, even if you hate them, because, as a writer in the present, they’re your only beautiful muses in this world. I’m quite convinced that very few, if any, can do it alone. Jake, you must understand something … you must understand that momentary rage is good, but that abiding hate is ruinous. Don’t hide from people in hate when you can rage silently in their presence. Rage means you’re alive. Rage brings you closer to the truth. Misanthropes have nothing to write about, because they’re already dead, and writing is for the living.

Yes, come along.” She gave his athletic form a deliberately challenging glance. “I only hope that you’ll be able to keep pace with me.” “I’ll try,” he assured her wryly, falling into step beside her as she continued her walk. They approached the trunk of a huge oak that had fallen across the path. Insects buzzed lazily through the rays of strengthening sunlight that streamed in from above. “Look,” Lottie said, gesturing to a dragonfly as it flew and dipped before them. “There are more than a dozen varieties of dragonfly in this forest, and at least a hundred different moths. If you come at dusk, you can see purple hairstreak butterflies— they gather right there at the tops of the tr—” “Miss Miller,” he interrupted, “I’m a Londoner. We don’t care about insects, except to consider how they may best be exterminated.” Lottie heaved a theatrical sigh, as if vexed by his lack of interest in the subject. “All right, then. I will refrain from describing the many varieties of aquatic beetle we have here.” “Thank you,” came his fervent reply. -Lottie & Nick

Every morning, I felt a little excitement as I checked my email, as if part of me believed there would be an unread message - with a beautiful, boldfaced title - waiting in my inbox that would bring me great news or inject energy into my humdrum routine, or, in the highest of hopes, change the course of my prosaic life.

I once saw a priest drop his keys and bend over and pick them up and it was just so human it ruined religion for me.

Don't eat cheese before talking to cows

You seem to have no fear of heights, Miss Miller," he commented. "I'm not afraid of anything," she said confidently. "Everyone is afraid of something." "Oh?" She sent him a provocative glance. "What could a man like you possibly fear?" To her surprise, he answered seriously. "I'm not fond of enclosed places." The gravity in his tone made her heart thump heavily. What a voice he had, deep with a tantalizing raspiness, as if he had just awakened from a heavy sleep. The sound seemed to gather at the top of her spine and slide downward like heated honey. "Neither am I," she admitted.

Philosophy (Bertrand Russell), Reasons and Persons (Derek Parfit), The Last Word; Mortal Questions (Thomas Nagel), Our Final Invention (James Barrat), Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Nick Bostrom), Humiliation; The Anatomy of Disgust (William Ian Miller), The Flight

I'm not convinced I know how to read; I've just memorized a lot of words.