Not Watching Television Quotes & Sayings

I grew up going to the movies, not watching them on television, so I'm still a bit resistant to TV as a medium. — Kenneth Lonergan

I think the cartoons that they're children are watching, particularly 'The Simpsons,' they're OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That's not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television. — Jerry Lewis

Give at least fifteen minutes everyday to reading. Sometimes, we spend a lot of time watching television - surfing through channels; not really watching anything in particular. Fifteen minutes out of that time is not a big deal. Soon you will find yourself reading for more than fifteen minutes. Soon you will find yourself turning to a book when you need to relax. Soon you will realize that reading a book heals you in a way you never imagined possible. — Arti Honrao

The hours spent viewing TV are hours not available for actively participating in the real world, or playing, or being involved with friends and family. Watching television is an individual activity that tends to discourage interaction with others; as viewing time increases, family communication time decreases. As family communication decreases, people grow more distant from each other and may even forget how to carry on a good conversation. — Louise Hart

When you read a book, you generate beta waves irrespective of the book's content. But if you look up from it, and start watching TV - it doesn't matter what the content of the program is - the beta waves disappear and you start processing alpha and theta waves. These are the same waves that you generate during meditation. Reading is primarily left hemisphere and watching television is primarily right hemisphere. Now how could that not have a major effect on our culture? — Leonard Shlain

This whole thing about reality television to me is really indicative of America saying we're not satisfied just watching television, we want to star in our own TV shows. We want you to discover us and put us in your own TV show, and we want television to be about us, finally. — Steven Spielberg

I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS, but lots of guys have a thing for Ariel. You know, from The Little Mermaid? I've never been into her myself, but I can understand the attraction: she fills out her shells nicely, she's a redhead, and she spends most of the movie unable to speak.
In light of this, I'm not too disturbed about the semi I'm sporting while watching Beauty and the Beast - part of the homework Erin gave me. I like Belle. She's hot. Well ... for a cartoon, anyway. She reminds me of Kate. She's resourceful. Smart. And she doesn't take any shit from the Beast or that douchebag with the freakishly large arms.
I stare at the television as Belle bends over to feed a bird. Then I lean forward, hoping for a nice cleavage shot ...
I'm going to hell, aren't I? — Emma Chase

The problem is not with the athletes, but with us. No matter how blatant the drug use may be, we don't stop watching the Tour de France. Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes. — Peter Singer

I know I'm an actor, but I'm not at all a believer in people watching a lot of TV. I've never had television in my home. — Alexandra Paul

People assume that memory decline is a function of being human, and therefore natural," he said. "But that is a logical error, because normal is not necessarily natural. The reason for the monitored decline in human memory performance is because we actually do anti-Olympic training. What we do to the brain is the equivalent of sitting someone down to train for the Olympics and making sure he drinks ten cans of beer a day, smokes fifty cigarettes, drives to work, and maybe does some exercise once a month that's violent and damaging, and spends the rest of the time watching television. And then we wonder why that person doesn't do well in the Olympics. That's what we've been doing with memory. — Joshua Foer

I think they need to get a more reliable way of watching television on the laptop. Because I travel so much, if I want to watch my favorite sports team it might not be showing in that place, so I want a reliable way to watch whatever I want to watch on my laptop. — John Legend

There is a difference. You watch television, you don't witness it. But, while watching television, if you start witnessing yourself watching television, then there are two processes going on: you are watching television, and something within you is witnessing the process of watching television. Witnessing is deeper, far deeper. It is not equivalent to watching. Watching is superficial. So remember that meditation is witnessing. — Rajneesh

When we're not trying to kill each other with spells, we just sit in in Daniel's dressing room watching cricket games on television. — Tom Felton

There is a trend in the whole [U.S.] culture toward making things shorter. People have been watching too much television, and they have a television mentality. I think people really are wary of sitting in a theatre too long. They're not used to it. — Rocco Landesman

I cannot tell you how many quiet mornings I have spent sitting around hotel rooms and furnished apartments in the United States and Mexico, smoking cigarettes, plunking the guitar, and watching Perry Mason
telling myself, Well, at least I don't have a day job. And there is nothing wrong with that. I am not guilty of anything. Perry would see that in a minute. — Dave Hickey

Watching television in those days was not the same experience as it is today. After years of listening to radio, we found the black-and-white images mesmerizing. — Annette Funicello

I know I'm not funny. I mean, let's face it, I'm no Groucho Marx. But if you're a guy, and you're watching late night television, are you gonna start jacking off to Groucho? I don't think so! — Sarah Silverman

Lend stood up, shouldering his duffel bag, as I walked back into the living room. "Where do you think you're going?" I snatched his coat away and held it. He just got here. There was no way I was letting him go anywhere else.
"I happen to have very important things to do."
"What on earth is more important than watching Easton Heights??"
"Christmas shopping for you?"
I dropped the coat into his arms and opened the door. "Take your time."
"Glad to know I'll be missed."
"Have fun!" I leaned up and kissed him hard, then shoved him out and sat back on the couch with a sloppy smile on my face. "Best boyfriend ever."
"Shut. Up. Now." Arianna didn't move, eyes fixed on the television. A firm knock sounded on the door. "And tell Lend he can just walk in already!"
"Did you forget something?" I said as I opened the door, surprised to see a short black woman in a suit. And not Lend pretending to be one, either. — Kiersten White

The smartest kid Justin ever met, back in kindergarten, had told him to pretend his parents were characters in a television sitcom. 'Pretend there's a frame around 'em like the Tube, pretend they're a show you're watching. You can go into it if you want, or you can just watch and not go into it. — Thomas Pynchon

There's also a possibility that the landlord is in there right now, wearing women's undergarments. Or a drug addict is inside stealing jewelry.Or a boatload of recent Chinese immigrants without a television watching Russia play Finland in hockey and placing bets over beer.
You have no idea what's behind that door. You can't just pick the options within your field of vision. Reality comes from everywhere. At best, you can narrow down the likelihoods. But in the end, it's not a matter of deduction. It's a matter of fact. One bullet will kill you if you're stupid or unlucky. So at least don't be stupid — Derek B. Miller

I will waste an extraordinary amount of time, you know. And if it's not watching television, I'll be sitting staring out of the window. And yes, I know there's the idea of the artist, sitting there doing nothing while things are going on, but actually, no. It's vacant space. I'm thinking about the laundry. — Glen Duncan

Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion. — Mario Puzo

There's a spirit of freedom in Portland you can't find many other places. Austin has it a little, and Boulder has it. Nashville is glowing with it. It's not just a hippie thing either. It's something other, a feeling everybody else in the country is being corralled into buying just a few kinds of clothes, a couple of different records and watching the same television shows, while in these rare cities, these bastions of freedom, people have turned off their televisions to realize there are more than binary options for us to choose from. We don't have to be either conservative or liberal or religious or atheist or divided into this or that categories. We can be ourselves, a conglomerate of nuanced beliefs and opinions. — Donald Miller

I think many years from now, people will still watch television, though it will probably be 150 inches wide. What will change is the ability to get 'CSI' not only on TV but also on the Internet, even watching it in a foreign country as it's playing in the U.S. — Leslie Moonves

When a strong emotion arises within us like a storm, we are in great turmoil. We have no peace. Many of us try to pacify the storm by watching television or eating comfort foods. But the storm does not calm down after hours of watching. The storm does not go away after a bag of chips or a bowl of ice cream. We hate ourselves afterward for eating the chips and the ice cream. We dread stepping on the scale the next day. We vow to never do it again. But time after time, we do. Why? Because our habit energy pushes us. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Aging on camera is just very hard. I love my age. I feel good about myself but high definition television is not kind. You don't even look like yourself in high-def. It just makes every little line on your face more exaggerated so it ends up aging you. It's like you're watching yourself seven years older. — Lisa Edelstein

She understands all at once, with a small shock, exactly what it is she always needed to tell Harland: being there in person is not the same as watching. You might see things better on television, but you'll never know if you were alive or dead while you watched. — Barbara Kingsolver

It was strange to read about the people he knew in New York, Ed and Lorraine, the newt-brained girl who had tried to stow herself away in his cabin the day he sailed from New York. It was strange and not at all attractive. What a dismal life they led, creeping around New York, in and out of subways, standing in some dingy bar on Third Avenue for their entertainment,watching television, or even if they had enough money for a Madison Avenue bar
or a good restaurant now and then, how dull it all was compared to the worst little
trattoria in Venice with its tables of green salads, trays of wonderful cheeses, and
its friendly waiters bringing you the best wine in the world! 'I certainly do envy
you sitting there in Venice in an old palazzo!' Bob wrote. 'Do you take a lot of gondola rides? How are the girls? Are you getting so cultured you won't speak to any of us when you come back? How long are you staying, anyway ? — Patricia Highsmith

Now, all America sits in front of television sets and those television sets exude, I am sorry to say, a considerable amount of radioactive material. It's not huge, you know, but it's enough so that people who have made a habit of watching TV ... get the TV radiation. — L. Ron Hubbard

If a Martian were watching our television shows, he'd conclude that guns were more common than hammers. They're not evil themselves--they're tools--but everywhere you go, bad people have them. It behooves the righteous to at least know how they work. — John Sandford

Web searching and cellphone use both flourish in the wee hours. Before the dawn of the web, I would stay up watching television. But there is something soporific about television: I would often nod off. Not so when I'm online. As technologies expand, these problems may only worsen. — Sendhil Mullainathan

It was the books I started reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn't. Wen all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn't, you get crushed. I'm not going to get crushed. — Irvine Welsh

Confession: I don't want everybody to be beautiful, not in that unlined, creaseless, symmetrical way. Android beauty, like it comes out of a test tube. Beauty without blemish or mark. Not only do I not identify with such people, I don't believe in them either. I don't even find them attractive. This is what makes watching television so hard: they don't cast actors anymore, only models. When they make a movie of my life, they'd better cast a character actor in the lead. Don't try to tell me I'm not a character. — Lisa Samson

Watching television is another high-risk situation. This might seem counterintuitive, since people often look to TV as an escape - something to take their mind off things. But here's the problem: Most programs are simply not interesting or engaging enough to fully occupy the mind, so it's all too easy for our thoughts to wander off when we're sitting in front of the tube. Add to this the fact that depression impairs our ability to concentrate - including the ability to stay focused on a TV program - and it's no surprise that watching television is often a recipe for disaster. It's one of the most effective ways to usher in an extended bout of rumination. — Steve Ilardi

He couldn't make the thought go anywhere, and soon zoned out into watching the television screen. It showed a crazy-haired old gent tramping around an undistinguished patch of countryside. He couldn't remember selecting the channel, and with the sound off it really wasn't very interesting. Was it worth turning the sound up? Probably not. It increasingly seemed to him that television was being created for someone else. He was welcome to watch it, of course, but it was not he whom the creators had in mind.
("Maybe Next Time") — Michael Marshall Smith

The thing that I love about television there are no more than two or three people watching you at a time. If there are more than two or three people in a room they're talking to each other, they're not listening to you. — Betty White

This is not about the aesthetics: there is a rule in a society: "Whoever you deal with, makes you become them", therefore watching the efforts of para-athletes can bring the temporary mobility disorder. If we want humanity to develop, the television should show us people who are healthy, beautiful, strong, honest and wise - not perverts, murderers, weaklings, losers, idiots or invalids. — Janusz Korwin-Mikke

I was home alone watching George Bush speak on television. So it was just really the two of us. And as I listened to him, I realized, that one of us ... was nuts! And for the first time ever, I went, 'Wow, it's not me!' — Lewis Black

Mental challenges cause an "adaptive response" to take place in the brain, just like a muscle. Challenges build axon-dendrite "transmitter-receiver" connections. Passive activities such as watching "reality" television do not stimulate or build these connections. We need to be actively involved with our activities, instead of being passive observers. Making and unmaking nerve cell connections (neuroplasticity) dictates how well the brain can handle stress. — Chris Hardy

Soup's here," Judd finally said after we watched each other for a few minutes.
As I sipped the broth, Judd pretended to ignore me. I knew he wasn't really watching television. His face was too perfectly stoic like he was working hard to make himself seem cold.
"Do you want the rest?" I asked.
Judd frowned at me. "If I wanted soup, I'd have ordered myself some. I'm not a dog begging for scraps."
Scowling at his ridiculous anger, I shrugged. "I don't want to waste the rest. Can we put it in the mini fridge and I'll eat it in the morning?"
Judd's frown eased. "Fuck it. I'll eat it."
"No, it's mine," I said, standing up. "I offered and you got grumpy. Now, you can't have it."
"I'll just eat it after you go to sleep."
"I respect your honesty," I said, setting the bowl into the little fridge next to the expensive treats. "It's a rare quality in a thief."
Judd grinned. — Bijou Hunter

I'm just an actor. My performance is not more important than your life. Stop watching. We're false images designed to sell you products by exploiting your insecurities. To make you spectators in life, not participants. — Grant Morrison

People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching television, movies. They are used to getting things through the eye and the ear. In a small way, literature goes on being written, but few people like it. Once it's bureaucratized by the schoolteachers, the game's up. — Gore Vidal

So why do people keep on watching? The answer, by now, should be perfectly obvious: we love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist. In fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: a rich, new, participatory life. — Barbara Ehrenreich

When you work in front of the people, either in a film or in television, the people who are in the room with you are not watching you work, they're working so you'd have to light a fire to get them to watch what you were doing. — Richard Dreyfuss

I'm not sure I'd classify any topics as off-limits, but I don't look for new territories to offend. There's my joke about when my roommate beat cancer. People talk about cancer survivors like they're warriors, but from where I was sitting, she was just watching television and eating soup. Like, did she go to war? No. She kind of just sat around. — Amy Schumer

I spend way too much time watching television, going to sports games, going to movies. It struck me that there's an awful lot of data in the public domain for these sectors. The movie industry publishes weekly sales numbers - not many industries do. — Anita Elberse

I liked you better when you had vordo." "You're not suggesting we do it in this tiny closet with two men watching television in the next room, are you?" "It'd be limiting," Ranger said, "but at least you wouldn't have your ass on the horn. — Janet Evanovich

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets — Aneurin Bevan

After once having made the mistake of watching television news, I had worried for a while about an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out human civilization. The anchorwoman had said it was not merely possible but probable. At the end of the report, she smiled. — Dean Koontz

Even if every program were educational and every advertisement bore the seal of approval of the American Dental Association, we would still have a critical problem. It's not just the programs but the act of watching television hour after hour after hour that's destructive. — Ellen Goodman

I think that there's some brainwashing going on with this idea that we don't have time to cook anymore. We have made cooking seem much more complicated than it is, and part of that comes from watching cooking shows on television-we've turned cooking into a spectator sport ... My wife and I both work, and we can get a very nice dinner on the table in a half hour. It would not take any less time for us to drive to a fast-food outlet and order, sit down, and bus our table. — Michael Pollan

If you're watching a film on your television, is it no longer a film because you're not watching it in a theatre? If you watch a TV show on your iPad, is it no longer a TV show? The device and the length are irrelevant; the labels are useless, except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers, who use these labels to conduct business deals. — Kevin Spacey

As he drove away, I began to think that what kept us together was perhaps not even our romance with an imaginary France. That was just a veneer, an illusion. Rather, it was our desperate inability to lead ordinary lives with ordinary people anywhere
ordinary loves, ordinary homes, ordinary careers, watching ordinary television, eating ordinary meals, with ordinary friends
even ordinary friends we didn't have, or couldn't keep. — Andre Aciman

My first few years as TV critic, I would go to parties and people (usually older Posties or ex-Posties who seemed to pride themselves on not watching very much television) would take me by the arm and insist that I watch this show they'd recently starting watching on DVD, about drug dealers in Baltimore. — Hank Stuever

For me, there's nothing that beats playing. When I'm not playing, I'll watch games on the television, watch stuff on You Tube, everything. I just live for football, love watching great players. — Jermain Defoe

If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the S.A.T. instead of watching television, and you can save more money for retirement. It's not just about marshmallows. — Walter Mischel

I'm not one of those who thinks there is something inherently bad or inferior about watching television. — George Osborne

The only American soldier convicted in the [My Lai Massacre in Vietnam], Lieutenant William Calley, served three months under house arrest. What the massacre drove home to me was that Oriental life was not terribly valuable. You could extinguish hundreds of Orientals - unarmed villagers, farmers, women, toddlers, infants - and the penalty would be napping and watching television in your apartment for twelve weeks. — Alex Tizon

Watching people run on television was a revelation for me. Never before had I thought of running as a sport. When I ran, I did not think about conditions in the camp or the hunger in my belly. Running was my therapy, my release, my escape from the world around me. — Lopez Lomong

I Philo, educating yourself was something you had to do in spite if school, not because of it
which is basically why so many of my high school peers are still there in Philo even now, selling one another insurance, drinking supermarket liquor, watching television, awaiting the formality of their first cardiac. — David Foster Wallace

The voices may propel you to warble along, or to dance, they may inspire you to seduction or insurrection or inspection or merely to watching a little less television. The voices of Barrett Rude Jr. and the Subtle Distinctions lead nowhere, though, if not back to your own neighborhood. To the street where you live. To things you left behind.
And that's what you need, what you needed al along. — Jonathan Lethem

I think television often has dismissed younger people. They figure, well, they're not really watching news, that's not our audience. — Kurt Loder

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it. — Val Kilmer

Another activity that can detract us from the proper way is watching television excessively or viewing improper movies. While fine productions on these media are uplifting and entertaining, we need to be very selective in choosing what we see and how much of our time such an activity deserves. Our precious time must not be diverted to the sideline attractions of vulgar language, immoral conduct, pornography, and violence. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

When a child is watching television, he or she is not involved in play, not socializing with other individuals, and most importantly, not receiving feedback as to the actions or consequences of his or her behavior. — David Perlmutter

What happens to children and families today who sit around the television? They're watching made-up stories. It's not their experience and it's not truly shared. A human being must learn at a very young age how to connect to other human beings. Our technologies are driving us apart, only connecting us in terms of information, not in terms of emotions. — Rita Mae Brown

But they could be frightening, too. "Watching Watergate in Archie Bunker Country," said the cover of the June 18 issue of New York magazine. It began with the author, top-drawer trend journalist Gail Sheehy, recording what happened when the proprietor of Terry's Bar in Astoria, Queens, asked his patrons if he might tune the bar's TV to the hearings. Nine men cried "Forget it!" "The majority called for Popeye cartoons. But Terry couldn't find a channel that wasn't polluted with the 'search for unvarnished truth.' They had no choice. Television was suppressing their freedom not to know." These ironworkers, sandhogs, elevator operators, and beer truck drivers said things like this: that Ted Kennedy "killed a broad" ("Now there was a mountain, and they made a molehill — Rick Perlstein

I am sort of proud that I think radio has become a dominant influence in shaping public opinion. Good radio paints the picture for the audience. The audience has to be actively involved. Sometimes, in television, you can get lulled into sleep watching the picture, not listening to what you're hearing. — Rush Limbaugh

It is not much different from a person who goes to the gym to exercise on a regular basis versus someone who sits on the couch watching television. Proper physical exercise increases your chances of health, and proper mental exercise increases your chances for wealth. Laziness decreases both health and wealth. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

How you feel after watching something indicates not what you watched but where you are at. — A.D. Posey

Incapable of conjuring up any facial expression that she did not learn from watching television, Jessica Alba plays a brilliant scientist who inadvertently acquires the ability to make herself invisible. This is not a gift Alba seems particularly comfortable with, as the last thing she needs is to be heard but not seen. — Joe Queenan

Nonetheless, gazing out the train window at a random sample of the Western world, I could not avoid noticing a kind of separation between human beings and all other species. We cut ourselves off by living in cement blocks, moving around in glass-and-metal bubbles, and spending a good part of our time watching other human beings on television. Outside, the pale light of an April sun was shining down on a suburb. I opened a newspaper and all I could find were pictures of human beings and articles about their activities. There was not a single article about another species. — Jeremy Narby

Reading not only enlarges and challenges the mind; it also engages and exercises the brain. Today's youth who sits mesmerized by a television screen is not going to be tomorrow's leader. Television watching is passive. Reading is active. — Richard M. Nixon

Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time reading magazines and watching television, hope for eternal life ... The life I want is a life I could not endure in eternity. It is a life of love and intensity, suffering and creation, that makes life worth while and death welcome. There is no other life I should prefer. Neither should I like not to die. — Walter Kaufmann

When you're watching television, you don't want to watch a show where everything just works out. You don't want to see a relationship that's just blossoming and everyone's happy and sunshine and roses all the time. That's also not true in life. — Candice Accola

I don't think I miss anything by not watching television. — Alexandra Paul

McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television. — Pauline Kael

But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work. — Anonymous

Television masturbates its audience even though the audience is not really watching. It masturbates orifices the audience doesn't have. It sticks holes in the viewer and masturbates in those holes. Then it finally gets into the brain and masturbates there, too. — James Purdy

There are basic differences between food and clothing. You eat food and wear clothing. Food goes in; clothing goes on. 2. Do not bite anything that will bite back. This includes the dog, other babies, electrical cords and your father when he is watching professional football on television. 3. Washing your face after a meal is not considered cruel and unusual punishment. It won't do any good to report Mommy and Daddy to the police. 4. — Erma Bombeck

When you watch television, you never see people watching television. We love television because it brings us a world in which television does not exist. — Barbara Ehrenreich

In later years, your child will still appreciate having some time with you before he goes to sleep. He needs close, warm, personal time , something that simply watching television together, for instance, will not provide: even if the shows are not exciting or scary - which is unlikely - and even if you are sitting next to him, the lack of direct personal interaction makes this bedtime routine a poor one. Instead, use the time to discuss school events, plans for the weekend, soccer, dance class, after-school programs, or music lessons. It might also be helpful to talk about any worries your child may have, so he will be less likely to brood over them in bed. — Richard Ferber

watch the goshawk snip, tear and wrench flesh from the rabbit's foreleg. I feel sorry for the rabbit. Rabbit was born, grew up in the field, ate dandelions and grass, scratched his jaw with his feet, hopped about. Had baby rabbits of his own. Rabbit didn't know what lonely was; he lived in a warren. And rabbit is now just a carefully packed assemblage of different kinds of food for a hawk who spends her evenings watching television on the living-room floor. Everything is so damn mysterious. Another car passes. Faces turn to watch me crouched with rabbit and hawk. I feel like a tableau at a roadside shrine. But I'm not sure what the shrine is for. I'm a roadside phenomenon. I am death to community. I am missing the point. — Helen Macdonald

I traveled and worked with amazing actors, like Andy Garcia, Alec Baldwin, Brendan Fraser, Forest Whitaker, Lee Pace. It was this great learning experience. And then, I started watching a lot of television. I was always in these foreign countries and I would get TV shows on DVD, and I started to realize that all of the amazing roles for women were on television. I was spoiled by Buffy because I thought that was the way it was everywhere, and it's not. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

I sit watching the brown oceanic waves of dry country rising into the foothills and I weep monotonously, seasickly. Life is not like the dim ironic stories I like to read, it is like a daytime serial on television. The banality will make you weep as much as anything else. — Alice Munro

Baseball hasn't been the national pastime for many years now - no sport is. The national pastime, like it or not, is watching television. — Bob Greene

Father Travis leaned back. I glanced up at him. He was watching us from under his brow, his hands folded in his lap. His eyes had taken on that cyborg gleam. His cheekbones looked like they were going to break right through his skin. Not only did he own a copy of Alien, not only did he have an amazing and terrible wound, but he had called us humiliating names without actually resorting to the usual swear words. Besides that there was the deft speed with which he'd caught Angus, the free weights beside the television, the fancy Michelob. It was almost enough to make a boy want to be a Catholic. — Louise Erdrich