Tiffanie DeBartolo Quotes:

Don't waste your time with fear.. Fear won't keep you safe from being hurt.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2002). “God Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.56, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Hurt, Safe, Waste, Being Hurt

And no matter what anybody says about grief and about time healing all wounds, the truth is, there are certain sorrows that never fade away until the heart stops beating and the last breath is taken.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2017). “God-Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.293, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Taken, Grief, Heart, Never Fade

Just knowing you exist changed the world for me.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2002). “God Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.261, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Love, Knowing, World

It sounds silly, I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie. Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down. And sometimes, when you're trying to find your way, one of those gods actually shows up and gives you directions.

Topics: Song, Lying, Silly

Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE - not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.103, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Eye, Kissing, Breathing

For the record, if I were Superman, a pale, scrawny guy holding a guitar would be Kryptonite.

Topics: Kryptonite, Guitar, Guy

I would have remembered the good stuff. Nobody ever remembers the good stuff.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.229, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Stuff, Remember, Remembered

Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.

Topics: Blessed, Offering, Iron, Iron Maiden, Electric Chair

To Jacob the act of critiquing art was essentially imprecise. That's why he didn't read reviews on anything he liked, be it a book, a movie, or a record. He believed that any work an artist puts forth which contains the truth as he or she sees it is worthy of consideration, and any commentary of the work beyond that is nothing more than pure individual opinion and should not be considered relevant to the work itself.

Topics: Art, Book, Records

As usual, no one's ever around when you need them.

Topics: Usual, Needs

And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.

Topics: Uncles, Aunt, Balls

In his eyes I saw all the other possibilities. The dream-world possibilities. The fairytale possibilities. The seemingly impossible possibilities.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.126, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Dream, Eye, World

I took a closer look. Jesus had piercing blue eyes, dark hair that hung in a flawless mess, his body was emaciated and taut, his hands and feet dripped with blood, and nothing but a gauzy loincloth hid what looked like a nice package underneath. “Sexy,” I said. “He looks like a rock star.

Topics: Sexy, Jesus, Stars, Dark Hair, Hands And Feet

I am of the theory that all of our transcendental connections, anything we're drawn to, be it a person, a song, a painting on a wall--they're magnetic. The art is the alloy, so to speak. And our souls are equipped with whatever properties are required to attract that alloy. I'm no scientist so I don't really know what the hell these properties are, but my point is we're drawn to stuff we've already got a connection to. Part of the thing is already inside of us.

Topics: Song, Art, Wall, Magnetic

That's the only way I could describe the music. It was the sonic equivalent of flight

Topics: Way, Flight

We hovered above the moment like two rain clouds

Topics: Rain, Two, Clouds, Rain Clouds

This is what it means to be in the middle of love, I thought. Being in the middle of love is like being in the middle of a war zone.

Topics: War, Mean, Love Is, War Zones

Don't swear off all the fruits just because you ate one bad apple.

Topics: Apples, Fruit, Bad Apple

I'd never seen that look on another face before, had never identified it in another person. I'd only met with it in fiction. But everyone falls in love with Holden Caulfield when they're sixteen. They read Catcher in the Rye and don't feel so alone.

Topics: Falling In Love, Looks, Fiction, Holden Caulfield, Holden

If you want me you're going to have to come and get me.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.396, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Want, If You Want Me, Want Me

That's why you have to save the dying man. Because you want him around to keep saving you.

Topics: Men, Dying, Want

Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies.

Topics: Dream, Song, Destiny

I'm tempted to tell you that you think too much, but I'm not really one to talk,' Jacob said. 'Henry Miller wrote something about fear making you fearless. It's a very powerful emotion. Use it to get what you want. I mean if it's going to rule our life, it might as well rule you to freedom, right?

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2002). “God Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.57, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Powerful, Mean, Thinking, Powerful Emotions

Committing suicide so as not to be murdered is the worst reason I've ever heard of to die.

Topics: Suicide, Reason, Worst, Committing Suicide

I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.

Topics: Folding, Messy

There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

Topics: Lonely, Emotional, Differences, Solitary Confinement, Repercussions

Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I had I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.57, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Lying, Feelings, Next

We had pathetically simple dreams: to do meaningful work that we could be proud of, to be together, and to be happy.

Topics: Life, Meaningful, Dream, Meaningful Work, Simple Dreams

It seemed cruelly unfair to me, even then, how fast your life can change before you have an opportunity to rethink your choices. We should get second chances on the big stuff. We should come equipped with erasers attached to the tops of our heads. Like pencils. We should be able to flip over and scribble away mistakes, at least once or twice during the duration of our existence, especially in matters of life and death.

Topics: Mistake, Opportunity, Second Chance, Erasers, Big Stuff

I know that if I ever have the audacity to blame fate or God for holding a gun to my temple, I also have the wherewithal to remind myself that if I end up with a hole in my head, I was the one who pulled the trigger.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.140, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Fate, Gun, Audacity

Fate is just another word for people's choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our hands.

Topics: Lying, Fate, Destiny

For me, the release was a spot in time with no past and no future. Just the extraordinary simplicity of a moment— the kind of moment that has a funny way of making a person believe that life and love can last forever.

Topics: Life And Love, Believe, Past

I try to find meaning anywhere I can. It's the only way I know how to validate my existence.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2002). “God Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.6, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Trying, Way, Existence

I've got my girl and my guitar, and for me that's enough.

Topics: Girl, Guitar, My Girl

Did you really want to die?" "No one commits suicide because they want to die." "Then why do they do it?" "Because they want to stop the pain.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.68, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Suicide, Pain, Suicidal, Committing Suicide

Break my heart? Is that what you just said? I have news for you; you didn't break my heart. My heart's fine. My heart's in the best shape of its life. You know what you did to me? You took an AK-47 and blew my soul open.

Topics: Heart, Ak 47, Soul

Fate is the magnetic pull of our souls toward the people, places, and things we belong with.

Topics: Fate, People, Soul, Magnetic

Talent? That's not talent. Talent is Liza Minnelli tap dancing and singing at the same time. What I just saw was devastation. Dying man on the cross. Salvation in B minor.

Topics: Men, Dancing, Singing, Tap Dancing

Thoughts are king, Trixie, king!

Topics: Kings

No one commits suicide because they want to die.

Topics: Suicide, Want, Wanting To Die

I'm almost thirty and my day job is folding shirts at the Gap. Have you seen my room? I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.

Topics: Jobs, Gaps, Rooms, Folding

Everyone feels that void. Everyone who has the balls to look inside themselves, anyway. It's what life's all about.. A search.

Topics: Void, Balls, Looks

I was looking for someplace to store all the things I was feeling - the friction, the contradictions, the unmerciful truth - but my heart, my soul, my eyes and ears and even my toes were locking their doors. They wouldn't let me in. For safety reasons. I had no choice but the throw the feelings away.

Topics: Heart, Eye, Doors

Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn't be one of them.

Topics: Love Is, Mad, Passionate, Extraordinary Love

There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can't. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It's our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it's time to throw in the towel.

source: - "How to kill a rock star". Book by Tiffanie DeBartolo, 2005.

Topics: Life, Writing, Fighting, Worth Fighting For, Staying Alive

Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever started a revolution playing by the rules

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.45, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Mean, Revolution

Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies- two ideas that on good days I believe wholeheartedly and on bad days I denounce as a bunch of bull.

Topics: Dream, Song, Believe

I'd be a sucker for a guy who wrote me a song,” I said. “Like Beth or Rosanna or Sara. Or Sharona. Is that too much to ask? To be somebody's Sharona?

Topics: Song, Guy, Too Much

And when Paul dove to embrace me, the look on his face was one of absolute, perfect joy—the kind of joy that can't be reproached, stolen, or marred—the kind that only the innocent or the ignorant are capable of experiencing.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.203, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Perfect, Joy, Ignorant

The days will always be brighter because he existed. The nights will always be darker because he's gone.

Topics: Women, Night, Gone

The phrase what I want struck me. It contains so much entitlement, so many complications, but encompasses only what a person doesn't have.

Topics: Want, Phrases, Entitlement

When dreams come true in reality they never feel the same as when you imagine them, and you know what that means? It means that no matter how good things are, maybe they’ll never be good enough, and there’s something seriously wrong with that.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.124, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Dream, Mean, Reality

Has the industry done to music what McDonald’s has done to eating?

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.374, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Mcdonalds, Done, Eating

We’re all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hole in our souls. Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. A lot of people even use the concept of God itself. I could go on and on. I used to know a girl who used shoes. She had over two-hundred pairs. But it’s all the same thing, really. People, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows.

Topics: Girl, Sex, Children

The question is one of faith. Faith in my talent. Faith in my decisions. And faith in the idea that the truth, even if it can’t pay my bills, can still set me free.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.51, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Ideas, Decision, Pay

Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.69, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Thinking, People, World

Inside every believe, there's a lie.

source: - "How to Kill a Rock Star". Book by Tiffanie DeBartolo, 2005.

Topics: Lying, Believe

I'm afraid of everything. Fear of being alone, fear of being hurt, fear of being made a fool of, fear of failure... Still, I think all my fears bleed from one big one.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2002). “God Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.57, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Hurt, Thinking, Fool, Being Hurt

... there’s also nothing noble about being fearless. How much do you wanna bet the last man standing in a battle is usually the biggest fool of all?” - Paul Hudson

Topics: Men, Fearless, Battle, Last Man Standing

Bottom line, Eliza— you’re my home and my family, and I don’t want to lose you. I could lose everything else, and as long as I still had you and a guitar I know I’d be all right. Do you get what I’m saying?

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.125, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Home, Guitar, Long, Bottom Line, I Don't Want To Lose You

I like to say I don’t believe in mystics . I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in destiny or kismet. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in anything. But I believe in the possibility of everything.

Topics: Believe, Fate, Destiny, Kismet

There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a person over and over every time you lay eyes on them, especially when you hate their goddamn guts

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.324, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Falling In Love, Hate, Eye

We grew apart. The thing is, we loved each other, and on some level we always will, but when you’re twenty-three and you fall in love, you tend to think that love will supercede any problems. Realizing that no matter how much you love somebody, no matter how desperately you want a relationship to work, life can act as an oxidizer and corrode it to pieces.

source: - "How to Kill a Rock Star". Book by Tiffanie DeBartolo, 2005.

Topics: Falling In Love, Love You, Thinking

I just happen to comprehend the low standards of the majority of the music-buying public, and I don’t care how condescending that sounds, it’s true. They always go for the shiny gimmicks. Always.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.113, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Majority, Sound, Care

Isn’t it funny to think that this magnificent piece of matter is in a state of decay? Really, can you think of any other living thing that looks this glorious as it’s dying?

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.101, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Thinking, Dying, Looks

You can’t judge a man solely on his actions. Sometimes actions are nothing more than re actions.

source: - "How to kill a rock star". Book by Tiffanie DeBartolo, 2005.

Topics: Men, Judging, Action

It’s easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you’re left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2017). “God-Shaped Hole: A Novel”, p.65, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Women, Flower, Water, Moisture

The music defied classification. If I had been writing a review of the show, I would have labeled it progressive, guitar-driven rock ’n’ roll. But the guitars made sounds guitars didn’t always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds. The music dug in so deep you didn’t hear it so much as feel it, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid, where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jump into the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky. That’s the only way I could describe the music. It was the sonic equivalent of flight.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.86, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Dream, Writing, Kids

I hate that word, CAN’T. I wish it had never been dreamed up, spoken, or defined. I wish the concept of CAN’T could be eradicated not only from language, but more importantly from the psyche of a girl who I know is filled with so much CAN it seeps out of her pores and scents the air.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.132, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Girl, Hate, Air

I need to know that wherever I end up, in the stars or in the gutter, you’re along for the ride.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.124, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Stars, Needs, Gutters, Along For The Ride

He was waiting for something from me. Acknowledgement. Validation. Commiseration, perhaps. I couldn’t even look at him because I was afraid of feeling any more than I already did.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.74, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Validation, Waiting, Feelings, Waiting For Something

You know what I was thinking about on my way home? How different my life would be if you’d made that gash a little deeper. Or how different yours would be if I’d vaulted myself off a roof nine years ago. Do you ever think about things like that? Like, if either you or I wouldn’t have made it, where would the other one be right now? It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living.

Topics: Home, Thinking, Years, Way Home, Nine Years

Maybe I’m weak for music men. Maybe I’m weak, period. But I couldn’t deny I was charmed by his arrogant, fool-ish guise.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.62, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Men, Arrogant, Fool, Music Man

I was having an epiphany. A moment of supreme clarity, leading to what I dubbed a “realization of solitude” that goes like this: I’m lonely. But when I left that girl in the window I was sure I’d never felt more godforsaken in my life. There’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I’m guessing that once you’ve discovered this distinction you can’t go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

source: - "How to Kill a Rock Star". Book by Tiffanie DeBartolo, 2005.

Topics: Girl, Lonely, Emotional, Solitary Confinement, Confinement

I didn’t write that song to try and win you over, or to steal you away from him. I wrote it because I knew I never could.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.231, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Song, Writing, Winning

The concept of time, as it’s commonly understood by normal people with normal jobs and normal goddamn lives, doesn’t exist on the road. The nights spread out like the dark, godforsaken highways that distinguish them, and the days run together like Thanksgiving dinner smothered in gravy. You never really know where you are or what time it is, and the outside world starts to fade away. It’s cool.

source: - Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.198, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Topics: Running, Jobs, Dark, Gravy, Thanksgiving Dinner