“My friends and family had put the bedroom back together and I woke the next morning thinking, for one brief second, that it was just another beautiful early-spring day. As I sat up, though, my body began to weep even before my mind recognized the cause for grieving. The world would never be the same. Everything I would make from that day on would recall how it had changed. Everything I did for myself would be in the name of what we had been.”
“My favorite scene was my dying scene, when I had to stand up and suddenly in that moment recall my wife and everything I stood for, and I say "My queen, my wife, my love" and I think of all my movies, that is the most powerful moment I ever had. In preparation for each take, I would scream at the ground, clench my fists, and scrape the ground, and cut all my knuckles and rip my nails... I would scream, and scrape, and scratch, and then I would stand and go "GO."And they would film.And it felt so visceral, and so powerful, and the next day, that was my last day of filming, the next day I was leaving Montreal and I went through US IMMIGRATION and the officer asked "what happened to your hands" and I said "I was just scratching the ground" and she took me for secondary questioning, and I missed my flight, and had to stay another day.So the next day I wore gloves.”
“I would have done the same thing I did. I would have put all my energy into loving someone that wasn't you. I would have tried in vain, every day, to not think about you, and what could have been. What should have been. I would have tried to convince myself that there's no such thing as true love, except for the love you yourself make work, even though I know better....The bottom line is I never had any business marrying anyone who wasn't you.”
“It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage.”
“It was one of those great spring days, it was Sunday, and you knew summer would be coming soon. And I remember that morning Dorrie and I had gone for a walk in the park and come back to the apartment. We were just sort of sitting around and I put on a record of Louie Armstrong, which was music I grew up with, and it was very, very pretty, and I happened to glance over and I saw Dorrie sitting there. And I remember thinking to myself how terrific she was and how much I loved her. And I don't know, I guess it was a combination of everything, the sound of the music, and the breeze, and how beautiful Dorrie looked to me and for one brief moment everything just seemed to come together perfectly and I felt happy, almost indestructible in a way.”
“I said to myself: what if I woke up, and every single day I did everything within my ability during that day to change my life. What could happen in just a month? A year?”