The best Quotes from The Stranger

I said everyone looks happy. That was kinda my point. If you judge the world by Facebook, you wonder why so many people take Prozac.

We get mad at someone for cutting us off in traffic or for taking too long to order at Starbucks or for not responding exactly as we see fit, and we have no idea that behind their facade, they may be dealing with some industrial-strength shit. Their lives may be in pieces. They may be in the midst of incalculable tragedy and turmoil, and they may be hanging on to their sanity by a thread. But we don't care. We don't see. We just keep pushing.

The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems.

Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon.

The cardinal rule: You never have to take back words you don't say.

The hunchback sees the hump of others - never his own.

We humans can't see straight. We are always biased. We always protect our own interests.

Hope could be a wonderful thing. But hope could crush you anew every single day. Hope could be the cruelest thing in the world.

Before we go forward, we have to look back.

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon!

You've made plenty of short stories long. But never, ever, have you made a long story short.

Memories, you see, hurt. The good ones most of all.

Summer romances come to an end. That was part of the deal. They are built like certain plants or insects, not able to survive more than one season. I thought we would be different. We were, I guess, but not in the way I thought. I truly believed that we would never let each other go. The young are so dumb.

That's the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song.

Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard.

They say you never know how someone will react when the grenade is thrown.

But life changes people. It smothers that kind of larger-than-life woman. Time quiets them down. That firecracker girl you knew in high school - where is she now? It didn't happen to men as much. Those boys often grew up to be masters of the universe. The super successful girls? They seemed to die of slow societal suffocation.

Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age.

"Semper paratus." "It's Latin," Shane said. "It means 'Always ready'."

Family and money is never a good mix. Someone is always going to feel resentful.

Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease.

All around her, children and families played and laughed and reveled in the glory of this seemingly ordinary day. They did so without fear or care because they didn't get it. They all played and they all laughed and they felt so damn safe. They didn't see how fragile it all was.

It was obvious and a bit of cliché, but we don't really age in a straight line. We age in a circle, curving back to childhood, but in all the wrong ways.

Here is the truth about tragedy: it's good for the soul.

Sex is for anyone; the aftermath is for lovers.

I kept hearing that "better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Another falsehood. Trust me, it is not better. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.

A beating hurts for a little while. The shame of cowardice never leaves.

The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers.

Even in the darkness, diamonds still shine.

Why would anyone want to be a pirate? It's the best thing there is. Wind in your back. The salty sea air. Loyal crew by your side.

What if everything that came from the past were influenced by the future?

It takes much more courage to be in love than it does for war.

Don't exploit an advantage just because it emerges; wait until the optimal moment, then strike.

Ats Ayittey: "Excuse me but this is the quiet carriage."
Stefan Tovell: "Shut the f*ck up then."

"Hey. Do you like bad boys?"
"Sure do. Let me know if you find one."

Marcus: "My bike. It's gone. She took it."
Max: "So that's like Grand Theft Auto. Or Grand Theft Bike."

Aimee: "Did you know you need, like, sugar and flour and an oven to bake? And you don't shove it all in, you have to follow alle these rules."
Maeve: "Yeah, it's called a recipe."

I think love should come out of nowhere, sweep you up completely.

The people's rage. It is like an illness, an ulcer. And ulcers must be cauterized.

People say Hawkins is cursed. They're not way off.

Weems: "No doubt you'll find something that tickles your fancy."
Wednesday: "The last person who tickled me lost a finger."

I'm responsible for my own happiness? I can't even be responsible for my own breakfast!

Even people that have made mistakes deserve happiness.

Charlie: "You didn't have to do that. I'm used to people saying stuff about me."
Nick: "No. But you shouldn't have to be. People shouldn't be saying stuff about you in the first place. You shouldn't have to put up with anything like that."

Walk until the darkness is a memory, and you become the sun on the next traveler's horizon.