Big Swiss Quotes
"I’m a worker, not a wallower. I would never call myself a 'survivor.'"
"If they stopped doing that for two seconds and got over themselves, even a little, they might actually become who they were meant to be."
"Trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card."
"Something terrible happened to this Swiss person."
"We took the Quaaludes, laughed for six hours, been friends ever since."
"‘Your cheekbones remind me of the fins on an old Cadillac,’ he said."
"‘It’s just—I feel like I have to ask, because a lot of people in this town—I won’t name names, because there’s too many—seem to be allergic to work, and will do literally anything to get out of it, including falling off a roof.’"
"Everything in Hudson is a little on-the-nose."
"I’ve never had so much in common with anyone."
"You should write a story from a donkey’s point of view."
"My mother killed herself when I was thirteen."
"I thought I had the upper hand, and I didn’t."
"Luckily, a nurse at the hospital had taken pictures of my face."
"Anger can be cleansing, too, just in a different way."
"I’ve wanted cornies—I mean kids—since I was little."
"It’s something I’ve been doing for years, long before his career took off."
"Endometriosis. Remind me what that is again."
"If endometriosis affected straight men and their penises—never mind. You’d never hear the end of it."
"Like driving home from work and not remembering the ride."
"It seemed like the wrong tool entirely for Big Swiss, who acted all hard but probably craved subtlety and nuance."
"I found myself wanting to tell her… well, everything."
"I’m usually guarded when I meet new people, but it felt like we already knew each other."
"It was like being in Edison’s laboratory."
"Their religion was something called radical authenticity."
"I envied the Catholic kids in my neighborhood. I craved structure, rules, discipline, uniforms."
"It felt—not like a baptism, but like an exorcism in reverse, except it was Jesus who entered my body."
"Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I never married Stacy, because I knew I was capable of cheating."
"I don’t feel like myself. Or maybe I feel more like myself."
"What you were looking for was already there, inside you."
"She seems profoundly lonely. It’s part of my attraction to her. She reminds me of the church bells of my childhood. In Geneva, all the church bells ring at the same time, every hour on the hour, in every corner of the city, and it’s the most melancholic sound I’ve ever heard, but also beautiful."
"She shamelessly evaluates your face, too, even though you're giving her a look of death. She doesn't even register your expression. She looks you directly in the eyes, but she doesn't see you."
"The dreaded Swiss stare. Still raises the hair on the back of my neck. Not always in a bad way."
"Terminal uniqueness" is a term used in twelve-step programs.
"If your relationship with her continues, there’s a risk of becoming retraumatized."
"I’ve never felt such a range of conflicting emotions."
"I think she likes to leave marks, so that I’m forced to think about her when she’s not around."
"Maybe you should try sitting with your discomfort."
"If everything can be explained by your trauma, then nothing is really your fault, right?"
"Why not say that you made a choice, that you knew what you were doing was wrong, and that you did it anyway?"
"Adultery is somehow more refined—or genteel—than eavesdropping."
"You millennials and your utopias, honest to god."
"It’s easy to forget how much blood we have inside us."
"But imagine getting stabbed with your own knife, man. I mean, is there anything more humiliating?"
"The shame Greta felt was so intense it gave her what looked like second-degree burns on her face and chest."
"It’s not so bad in here, she thought. Maybe she’d spend more time in this room from now on."
"Ellington and Pantaloon kept stomping their feet as if to test how solid the ground was, or to make sure they weren’t dreaming."
"Someone told me mini-donkeys could mend a broken heart."
"It seemed criminal that such adorable creatures would be living in Sabine’s backyard for the next thirty years."