This Is Not the End Quotes

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell them is all,” Cal says. “The specific words to use to describe what we’re doing, I mean. How do I even phrase it?”

“You tell them the truth.” Zac lets his feet tell Cal that it’ll all be okay, even as Anya’s tell him the same. “We’re a family.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“A marriage is less about how many people are in it and more about how happy you are.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“If mean people such, nice people swallow.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“She doesn’t expect people to let her get away with bad behavior, but there’s a difference between bad behavior and unladylike behavior, and while she doesn’t mind being called out for the first, anyone who has a problem with the second can choke on it.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Cal's expression goes soft. "I love you both too. So much." He's super earnest about it, because he's a goober. Zac rolls his eyes, because that kind of earnestness isn't rock-and-roll at all, but he can't help that his chest goes warm and achy at the words all the same.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Now make that other bag of popcorn. I need it. Put it in. In. Now."

"Your popcorn talk is a lot like your sex talk.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“I'll bet you ten bucks."

"You're a multi-millionaire. Ten bucks is embarrassing. What the hell? I'm disgusted.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“What's that?" Zac asks suspiciously.

Cal looks at the bag in fake surprise, as if shocked by its presence. "I don't know. It's a mystery. We should check." He glances inside, frowns, and then says to Zac, "It looks like it's a bag full of none of your business.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“They ease into a third week, and a fourth, and then a weekend comes when there's absolutely nothing scheduled. Cal thinks they must be about to tell him to go home for five damn minutes at least, but then Anya mentions antiquing, which is something Cal has never done. When he says so, she freaks out, and it turns out that what he must do has nothing to do with going home and everything to do with picking through other people's decrepit, smelly, abandoned old furniture.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Then, a handful of months after they decided to make a go of it together, Zac's relationship with his mother imploded and Zac showed up on Cal's porch at three in the morning.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," he said, trembling and red-eyed, his lashes damp and spiky. Cal gave him the couch and a key, already questioning whether the forced proximity would cause enough friction to kill the band before it really started. Instead, through some amorphous magic Cal hadn't known could exist in the world, they became irrevocably connected under the skin.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“PJ doesn't care about his messy humanity; he loves Cal just as he is and sometimes, on the hardest mornings, that love is the main reason why the tequila goes down the drain.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Zac stares out at the yard. "We can go to the liquor store after we hit your place. What are we buying, anyway?"

Cal pulls his hand back, clearing his throat. "Herradura Seleccion Suprema."

"You're pouring two hundred dollar tequila down the drain, you fucking psycho?" Zac yells. "Why don't you buy some five dollar shit or something?"

"The whole point is to remind myself that I'm strong enough to resist temptation. No one in their right mind is tempted by dirt cheap tequila.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Zac flushes a dull red. "You opened the box! That never would've happened if you hadn't asked me about it in the first place. Now I can't stop thinking about it, and it's driving me nuts, and I didn't even know I wanted it until you did this, but I do and I can't have it, and it's all your fault, why the hell did you have to be so--"

In a low voice, she says, "Red light, Zac."

His mouth slams closed, and he turns to stare furiously at the wall. 'Red light' is their conversational safeword, their code for 'this is about to hurt me or anger me to the point where damage is done, so think. Pause and think.' It's part of their oldest rule, the one they came up with in Paris, when they were both fucked out and sore and afraid of what they'd unleashed on each other, what they'd brought out of each other. 'We're both hot-headed,' Zac said, back in that trashed hotel bed. 'We need a way to defuse each other before we get to this.' He gestured at the room around them, and then at their own sweaty bodies.

'Are we bombs now?' she asked, and he said very seriously, 'Yes, I think so. Maybe that's the price for getting to have something this powerful.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“It's not that he won't talk, though, is it?"
After all, Cal had tentatively answered when she'd shown a willingness to wait. "It's more that he needs to know that you value his words."

"Yeah."

"I think I've been impatient with him. I'll do better."

"That's not only on you." Zac doesn't sound tense or tired anymore, only thoughtful. "He could probably try harder too. I think you'll be surprised how similar you are at the root once you get to know him better. You both love very fiercely. He does it by being there and giving whatever's needed, and you fight and bully and murder anything in the way, and on the surface it seems like there's nothing that's the same, but the motivation is."

She smiles and kisses his hand. "That's something to build on, at least.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“I get it. He's hard to get to know. He comes across kind of--"

"Boring. I'm sorry. I just don't know what to do when you're not in the room with us. I say something and he gets all stiff and polite and sits there like a lump and I want to poke him with a stick to get him to do something.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“It's alright if you don't like him. You don't have to care about him just because I do. It doesn't mean you're being a bad wife."

"What do I care about being a bad wife? I don't even like you.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Pick a movie, you bastard."

Cal smiles and politely pretends he's never seen a movie in his life and therefore can't possibly be expected to know how to choose one.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Also, I'm way more important to the band than him. I'm the front man. I stand in front."

You'd think she was trying to murder kittens instead of making a more concentrated effort to help Cal feel like he can open up a little. Honestly, Zac should be thanking her, and instead she gets this. "You strut around on the stage gyrating like you're fucking ghosts against an imaginary wall in front of everyone. That's not important.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“He turns back to the baby, whispering to him lowly enough that all she catches is 'your mother is a devil woman'.

She should probably kick him for that, but decides not to. In truth, she finds it flattering.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“Cal couldn't write that. I always thought the fucked-up shit came from you."

"You're so sweet to me, baby.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“It’s one of the things Anya finds most attractive about Zac, the way he orbits around the people he considers his. He unashamedly needs them, demands that they need him back, and sees no weakness in showing it.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End

“If mean people suck, nice people swallow.”
― Sidney Bell, This Is Not the End