Matthew Tobin Anderson Quotes

Quotes about:

• Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Teenager, Book, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I had a feeling that cheering her up might be a lot of work. I was thinking of how sometimes, trying to say the right thing to people, it’s like some kind of brain surgery, and you have to tweak exactly the right part of the lobe. Except with talking, it’s more like brain surgery with old, rusted skewers and things, maybe like those things you use to eat lobster, but brown. And you have to get exactly the right place, and you’re touching around in the brain but the patient, she keeps jumping and saying, “Ow.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Cheer, Thinking, Jumping

  9 Copy quote

• It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down. No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels. I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars. Violet. The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Kids, Tumbling Down, Civilization

  9 Copy quote

• Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.'

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Teenager, Writing, Teens

  5 Copy quote

• There are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around, and you don't care where you're going, and you don't care where you've come from, because all that matters is speed, and the hands holding your hands.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Running, Jumping, Spinning Around

  4 Copy quote

• Empedolces claims that in utero, our backbone is one long solid; and that through the constriction of the womb and the punishments of birth it must be snapped again and again to form our vertebrae; that for the child to have a spine, his back must first be broken

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Children, Punishment, Long

  4 Copy quote

• And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made very day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Fighting, Choices Made, Decision

  4 Copy quote

• Teens are not like the weird, dumb dwarves you have around your house. They are actually you when you were younger.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Dwarves, House, Dumb

  4 Copy quote

• It's insulting to believe that teens should have a different kind of book than an adult should.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Book, Believe, Should Have

  4 Copy quote

• I can't tell you how irritating it is to be an atheist in a haunted house.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Atheist, House, Irritating

  4 Copy quote

• …It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Simple, People, Goes On

  6 Copy quote

• A lot of the drive to make narratives came from having to play by myself as a 5- or 6-year-old in the woods.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Years, Play, Narrative

  4 Copy quote

• I completely love music. I used to be the music critic at 'The Improper Bostonian.' It's just something I've always loved very deeply.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Music Love, Used, Bostonians

  5 Copy quote

• I feel like it's hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Historical Novels, Stories, Wells

  4 Copy quote

• At long last, you may no longer distinguish what binds you from what is you.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Long, May, Lasts

  4 Copy quote

• I do not know what I regret. I sit with my pen, and cannot find an end to that sentence.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Regret, Ends, Sentences

  10 Copy quote

• I feel like it's important every once in a while to estrange ourselves from the familiar to remind ourselves of the potentialities of people, how many different ways there are of being.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  People, Important, Different

  4 Copy quote

• We Americans are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they are produced, or what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Activism, Interest, Consumption

  4 Copy quote

• I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I'm about to write that I'm really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Writing, Thinking, Circles

  4 Copy quote

• I write for teens partially to work out whatever it was that I needed to from my own teenage years.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Teenage, Writing, Years

  4 Copy quote

• You made her apologize for sickness. For her courage. You made her feel sorry for dying.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Sorry, Dying, Apologizing

  4 Copy quote

• The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  World, Wonder, Natural

  6 Copy quote

• I miss that time. The cities back then, just after the forests died, were full of wonders, and you'd stumble on them--these princes of the air on common rooftops--the rivers that burst through the city streets so they ran like canals--the rabbits in parking garages--the deer foaling, nestled in Dumpsters like a Nativity.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Air, Cities, Rivers

  9 Copy quote

• Then it was this big thing. She was like, 'I never want to see you again', and I was like, 'Fine. Okay? Fine. Then get some special goggles.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Special, Goggles, Want

  4 Copy quote

• ...for reading, once begun, quickly becomes home and circle and court and family, and indeed, without narrative, I felt exiled from my own country. By the transport of books, that which is most foreign becomes one's familiar walks and avenues; while that which is most familiar is removed to delightful strangeness; and unmoving, one travels infinite causeways, immobile and thus unfettered.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Country, Book, Reading

  4 Copy quote

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