Andrew Smith Quotes & Sayings

He was a little guy, a former winger too, and he was a transplant from England who could talk the most civilized-sounding shit you would ever hear, and he could cuss you out with the most vicious obscenities and — Andrew Smith

Santa Claus is a lie but if you think that's bad, check out what 'fuck' really means. — Andrew Smith

I think everyone's an arrow like that, too, aiming into their own centers. — Andrew Smith

History will show that patient boys with a sense of humor, who can dance, tend to have more opportunities to participate in the evolution of the species than boys who give up and mope quietly on the sidelines — Andrew Smith

Not a very pretty world, is it?"
"Which one? — Andrew Smith

I pictured the first time we saw the girl, breezing past us in that Lincoln, blond hair whirling around her, her glasses tipped down, her smile, the stroke of her fingers. The teasing.
Simon tumbled the meteorite around in the sweat of his hand. I wondered what it would be like to look down at the earth, to fall, to burn brilliantly in the air like the image of the girl who passed by, kicking back dust like cosmic ash, and could she see that, now; was she up there above us?
I wondered.
We closed our eyes. — Andrew Smith

Okay, well . . . yeah, I didn't really say "Shut the fuck up," because I honestly don't cuss. But I wanted to. I think, in reality, I raised my finger to my lips and said, "Shhhhh," so she wouldn't say anything else as we spiraled into the center of that wish circle. — Andrew Smith

Sometimes books imitate life. And sometimes books imitate lives that imitate books. — Andrew Smith

I love how, whenever you tell me a story, you go backwards and forwards and tell me everything else that could possibly be happening in every direction, like an explosion. Like a flower blooming. — Andrew Smith

But Jack doesn't cry.
Maybe. — Andrew Smith

I hold together pretty well, considering how much my atoms have been through. — Andrew Smith

It's no wonder I became a monster, too. — Andrew Smith

To me, hearing that those girls gave my brother Eric a blow job sounded very nice.
History shows that all boys consider blow job to be a nice-sounding set of words.
I thought a blow job was putting your face in front of an air conditioner, which is something all nine-year-old boys love to do, even though Eric did not look like he had been cooled off very much. — Andrew Smith

Was Apollo worth all the effort and expense? If it had been about the Moon, the answer would be no, but it wasn't, it was about the Earth. The answer is yes. The only thing I can't see in all this is a rationale for going back. Unless we could find a way to take everyone. — Andrew Smith

after midnight
Just words.
No more pictures. No charts or plays or poems.
Now it's just about the words. — Andrew Smith

The one sure thing about Marbury is that it's a horrible place. But so is right here, too. And there's certain benefit in the obviousness of its brutality, because in Marbury there's no doubt about the nature of things: good and evil, or guilt and innocence, for example. Not like here, where you could be sitting in the park next to a doctor or someone and not have any idea what a sick and dangerous sonofabitch he really is. Because we always expect things to be proper, even if we haven't learned our fucking lesson that it just doesn't work out like that all the time. — Andrew Smith

I began to consider the fact that maybe history is actually the great destroyer of free will. — Andrew Smith

When you think about it, the universe is nothing but this vast knackery of churning black holes and exploding stars, constantly free atoms that collect together and become something else, and something else again. — Andrew Smith

The planet of humans and dogs spins and sails, spins and sails.
There is nothing I can do about it. Things keep moving. The knackery never shuts down. — Andrew Smith

They were both so beautiful, and their sound, as we said them to each other above the music, made our chests fill up with something electric and buzzing, like love and magic. — Andrew Smith

Apollo has something to teach us as we enter a new century of genetic modification, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology. It's a cautionary tale about that most fundamentally human of human tragedies .. wanting something so badly that you end up destroying it. — Andrew Smith

All roads lead past shooting ranges, liquor stores, and gay bars. Wanderlust is part of the American Spirit. — Andrew Smith

Robby called me Porcupine because of how I wore my hair. I didn't mind. Everyone else called me Austin.
Austin Szerba.
It is Polish. — Andrew Smith

History does show that nothing means a hell of a lot more than nothing when teenagers talk. In this case, Robby knew it meant that I did not want to talk about it, so he left me alone.
Robby Brees was such a good friend. — Andrew Smith

History provides a compelling argument that every scientist who tinkers around with unstoppable shit needs a reliable flamethrower. — Andrew Smith

Man will tell woman he will die for her, but I say, tell woman that you will die for her both physically and interior — Andrew Smith

Stupid people should never read books. — Andrew Smith

I guess that's a sign of growing up: When your dad shuts up but you can hear him anyway. — Andrew Smith

Researched Heinrich Fuchs. There were a lot of Fuchs in Splugen. Splugen was full of dumb Fuchs. The Swiss are famous for maintaining neutrality, except, apparently, when it comes to shooting at monstrous bugs with someone else's sperm. — Andrew Smith

I was certain about this: In the best new language, there would be no words for me or you. Those words have caused all the trouble started by the old languages. In any new language, there should only be we. — Andrew Smith

There is something inside all boys that drives us to go away again and again and again. — Andrew Smith

Henry believed that Marbury was a world out of balance. He needs to take a closer look at this one. — Andrew Smith

I am going to build something big for you. — Andrew Smith

Please do not shoot us in the balls, EJ Elgin. It is only me, Robby Brees, and my friend, Austin Szerba, who is your next-door neighbor, and we are not rat boys from Mars. We come in peace, and smoking cigarettes." "Benson — Andrew Smith

All good books are about everything, abbreviated. — Andrew Smith

A world between my fingers. — Andrew Smith

Here is what the end of the world looks like:
It looks like a child running out into the road, eyes focused only on some destination ahead - the future, which is on the other side - and the child fails to notice the speeding truck that is there, on that same road, in the present.
This is what the end of the world looks like.
All roads cross here. — Andrew Smith

Just as I opened the door from the boys' floor, I stumbled onto Mr. Farrow and that freakishly unhot witch from downstairs, Mrs. Singer.
Together.
Standing at the landing on the tenantless girls' floor. They were kissing, and it wasn't one of those innocent oh-hello-you-frosty-and-cadaverous-old-hag-from-downstairs-so-nice-to-see-you-this-afternoon pecks on the cheek, either. — Andrew Smith

There's no prison worse than "I promise. — Andrew Smith

People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer. — Andrew Smith

People fear what they can not understand and what they can not control. — Andrew Smith

History is full of decapitations, and Iowa is no exception. — Andrew Smith

But when I was quiet ... that made words too. The same words that make horrible things come also tell the quieter things about love. — Andrew Smith

I was thinking. What if the world was like one of those Russian nesting dolls? What if we only saw one surface of it, the outside, but there was all kinds of other stuff going on, too? All the time. Underneath. But we just don't see it, even if we're part of it? Even if we're in it? And what if you had a chance to see a different layer, like flipping a channel or something? Would you want to look? Even if what you saw looked like hell? Or worse? — Andrew Smith

I don't know exactly what the Xanax did to me. All I can remember is how relaxed and not-uptight I felt. I did not care about anything. Everything was nice, very nice. — Andrew Smith

If I could pray
and I'd stopped doing that nonsense long before the miracle of the refrigerator
I imagined praying, but I didn't know who to direct it to. — Andrew Smith

I would die for Conner Kirk. Sometimes, I think I have died for him dozens of times, over and over again. — Andrew Smith

I am not the only one who sometimes thinks I came from the pages of a book my father wrote.
Maybe it's like that for all boys of a certain - or uncertain - age: We feel as though there are no choices we'd made through all those miles and miles behind us that hadn't been scripted by our fathers, and that our futures are only a matter of flipping the next page that was written ahead of us.
I am not the only one who's ever been trapped inside a book. — Andrew Smith

I don't let just anyone fine me, you know? — Andrew Smith

You could never get everything in a book. Good books are always about everything. — Andrew Smith

You know, nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was. Things just expand and contract. Like the universe, like breathing. But you'll never fill your lungs up with the same air twice. Sometimes, it would be cool if you could pause and rewind and do over. But I think anyone would get tired of that after one or two times. — Andrew Smith

It was so pleasant, chaotic, emotionless, nameless-everything vibrating so beautifully in the universe without words. — Andrew Smith

Hungry Jack's real name was Charles R. Hoofard.
He was born in Indianapolis in 1950.
In 1950, Harry S. Truman was president of the United States.
Harry Truman, as far as I can tell, also never took a shit in his life.
In 1950, the same year that a boy named Charles R. Hoofard was born in Indianapolis, President Harry S. Truman sent military assistance to the French. They were trying to maintain their French Catholic colony in Vietnam. That military aid would grow and blossom to the point that a boy with wanderlust from Indiana named Charles R. Hoofard ultimately took time out from fucking whatever he wanted to fuck to participate in the killing of an entire village of women, elderly people, and children.
History is full of shit like that. — Andrew Smith

YOU KNOW HOW WHEN you're a senior in high school, and you officially know absolutely everything about everything and no one can tell you different, but on the other hand, at the same time, you're dumber than a poorly translated instruction manual for a spoon? — Andrew Smith

The more time you wait before telling somebody the truth about a secret you've been keeping, the longer your path out of the woods gets. — Andrew Smith

History chews up sexually uncertain boys, and spits us out as recycled, generic greeting cards for lonely old men. — Andrew Smith

I'm foolishly self-conscious. — Andrew Smith

We killed this big hairy thing and that big hairy thing. And that was our day. You know what I mean. — Andrew Smith

It was warm, and outside the sound of insects in the night was electric.
The music sounded better than anything I'd ever heard.
I had never been so happy in my life.
I played with the little silver medal against my bare chest.
I wrote poetry while we sat there like that in the dark and talked about our favorite poems and books and laughed and smoked. — Andrew Smith

My natural talent, I think, is in being fine - no matter what is actually going on inside me. I am fine. Nobody ever thinks otherwise. — Andrew Smith

History shows that an examination of the personal collection of titles in any man's library will provide something of a glimpse into his soul. — Andrew Smith

History does show that boys who dance are far more likely to pass along their genes than boys who don't.
Boys who dance are genetic volcanoes. — Andrew Smith

Sometimes it is perfectly acceptable to decide not to decide, to remain confused and wide-eyed about the next thing that will pop up in the road you build. — Andrew Smith

And then it's always that one word that makes you so different and puts you outside the overlap of everyone else; and that word is so fucking big and loud, it's the only thing anyone ever hears when your name is spoken.
And whenever that happens to us, all the other words that make us the same disappear in its shadow. — Andrew Smith

I don't just let anyone find me, you know? — Andrew Smith

Joey told me nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was, that things expand and contract- like breathing, but you could never fill your lungs up with the same air twice. — Andrew Smith

I suppose the things that transform your life don't appear as you fancifully imagine they will. — Andrew Smith

People naturally believe things they see. Nobody argues with the irrefutable postings on YouTube. — Andrew Smith

I realize that death and survival are both extremes of selfishness. — Andrew Smith

I once heard a tobacco-chewing hog farmer say that, in Iowa, folks like to spread out their children like dog shit on a dance floor. — Andrew Smith

History shows that erections happen at the worst possible times, and they stick around until someone else notices them. Often, it is either a librarian or an English teacher, like Mrs. Edith Mitchell. — Andrew Smith

I didn't like seeing books damaged. I'd seen enough burned-out schoolhouses and libraries in my first life. — Andrew Smith

Expired condoms are like nuclear waste: there's nothing sensible you can do with it. — Andrew Smith

Had (President) Kennedy turned to his advisers and wailed, "What can we beat the Russians at?" and if someone had cried "Backgammon!" at that point, Apollo would never have happened. — Andrew Smith

Everyone on every road that crossed beneath the point of my pen was always going to do the same things over and over and over.
I was confused.
How could I be in love with a girl and a boy, at the same time?
I was trapped forever.
You know what I mean. — Andrew Smith

Do you think I'm queer, Rob?" I asked.
"I don't care if you're queer," Robby said. "Queer is just a word. Like orange. I know who you are. There's no one word for that. — Andrew Smith

I thought about words - like words in books - and how just saying them made things real. — Andrew Smith

I do not know why, because that is not my job, but history shows that every time a teenage boy opens a permanent marker, he will first sniff it before deciding how to go about defacing the planet. — Andrew Smith

The television was on. Leslie Mitchell had been watching a program about how to cook lamb when Hungry Jack came in and started eating him. — Andrew Smith

Worry and regret are both useless weights that provide no drag. They never did anything to slow down the planet for one goddamned second. — Andrew Smith

You must be crazy, after all, if a bird loves you. — Andrew Smith

Look: Words did not frighten my father. They scared the shit out of me. I almost couldn't believe I'd worked up the guts to ask the question and not choke to death in the process. But words were the atoms in my father's universe, and he was their destroyer and their creator. — Andrew Smith

Mind the gap, Jack — Andrew Smith

Coffee is a girl who never tells a boy no. — Andrew Smith

Well, if I'm going to get beat up for being queer, at least I'd like to know one time what it feels like to be kissed."
"Um. I guess you deserve that. You know. Everyone deserves to not feel alone. — Andrew Smith

When I review my travels among the astronauts, my mind's eye goes first to the Houston shopping mall where Alan Bean sat for hours after returning from space, just eating ice cream and watching the people swirl around him, enraptured by the simple yet miraculous fact they they were there and alive in that moment, and so was he. — Andrew Smith

My brother Max nodded knowingly. Head injuries can answer a lot of questions that genetics are just too afraid to ask. — Andrew Smith

Because, in an empty bedroom with creaky old wood floors, it is a natural human response to just stand there and shift your weight from foot to foot, and think about sex. — Andrew Smith

Robby Brees was such a gifted theologian. — Andrew Smith

I always bring back books for the library. Books have everything in them. After the end of the world, you cannot learn a goddamned thing from a computer or a television screen. — Andrew Smith

I said a silent prayer. Actually, silent is probably the only type of prayer a guy should attempt when his head's in a toilet. — Andrew Smith

The end of the world was one week old and it was getting out of hand. — Andrew Smith

And I'm pretty sure that everyone in the Pacific Northwest heard Ryan Dean West shout, YOUSTEPPEDONMYFUCKINGNUTSYOUSONOFABITCH! — Andrew Smith

We made this stupid rule and this stupid rule.
Boys are not allowed to love each other.
Then we painted a bison on the wall. — Andrew Smith

Readers of history may decide that joking while two guys are driving around through a town that has recently been slaughtered by six-foot-tall praying mantis beasts with shark-tooth-studded arms is in poor taste.
It is.
But that is exactly what real boys have always done when confronted with the brutal aftermath of warfare. — Andrew Smith

I was going to do something I'd never done, and see things I could not understand and never believed existed.
This is history, and it is also the truth. — Andrew Smith

Innocence is the one thing you can't re-create, can only parody. — Andrew Smith

You know, if they ever gave a Nobel Prize for avoiding work, every year some white guy in Iowa would get a million bucks and a trip to Sweden. — Andrew Smith

I think it is always appropriate to end a conversation about sperm with a sweaty handshake. — Andrew Smith