Best 16 quotes of Pete Hautman on MyQuotes

How do you know it's not true if you don't believe in it?

I don't know and probably never will know enough about the true nature of the universe to tell anyone else what to believe, and I've come to distrust the words of those who have presumed to do so.

The first step to success it's to imagine it

We connect through our dreams. Like we could be a thousand miles apart and I'd still know you were there.

We were defined by what we did. What we had to do. I think this is why guys like football, and why they join the army, because as long as you are playing the game or following orders you do not have to figure out who you really are.

Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas.

You ever watch a football game and get totally into it? Why? It's not a real battle. It's just a game somebody made up. So how can you take it seriously? Or, you ever see a movie that made your heart about jump out of your chest? Or one that made you cry? Why? It wasn't real. You ever look at a photo of food that made your mouth water? Why? You can't eat the picture. . . . . . Same thing with water towers and God. I don't have to be a believer to be serious about my religion.

Anyway, the reason I hate communion isn't the meat-eating component. I get hungry enough, I'll eat anything. The reason I hate it is because everybody in the church except me, Jason Bock, stands up and gets in line for their little snack. I sit there alone in the pew while everybody stares at me as they file past. I sit there and burn under hellfire and damnation stare my father gives me. And I feel awful. But what choice do I have? According to Father Haynes, if a nonbeliever takes Holy Communion, he'll be damned for all eternity. Of course, being a nonbeliever damns me anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I figure it's safer not to partake. Just in case I'm wrong about the whole God thing. So I sit and endure the stares and the pangs and twinges of Catholic guilt, knowing that I am doing the right thing if I'm right, and the right thing even if I'm wrong. Being Catholic is hard. Being ex-Catholic is even harder.

- “Do You know what ghosts are, Stuey? I’ll tell you. They’re secrets haunting the memories of the living. So long as we carry their secrets, they refuse to leave. They wait.” “Wait for what?” “To be forgotten. My father has been gone for sixty years, but” — he tapped the side of his head — “he’s still here. He never left.

I once read a short story about some cannibals who didn't turn their victims into steaks and chops and roasts; they made them all into sausages. Because when you're eating a sausage you don't think so much about what you're eating. It's the same with communion wafers. .......... My point is, the miracle of the Holy Communion is when the priest turns these little white disks into the flesh of Jesus Christ. They call it transubstantiation. So, if you buy that, then the host the priest places on your tongue is actually a silver of Jesus meat. But they make the host as different from meat as they can, so even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out. Like with the sausages.

is reality simply a dream we share?

I suppose if we forgot stuff we’ll never know we forgot it, because we won’t remember

Murphy's face went through several mutations as he spoke, as if small animals were scurrying about just beneath his skin.

the dead live in our memories

...TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned.

we live in different worlds, different realities