The Rabbit Hutch Quotes

“The streets you walk, the food you eat, the job you work, the method of transportation you choose, the beauty products you purchase, the shows you watch, the links you click, the way you sit on a train, the way your speak to waiters, the way you take your coffee -- everything affects everyone. Find a way to believe this, even when sober.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“You're trapped inside yourself no matter how many degrees you get.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“In general, she feels too much or too little, interacts too much or too little -- never the right amount. It seems to her that she's spent her whole life sitting in a laundromat, freaking people out.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Because one day you will die, I promise, and mortality does not care if you believe in it.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Listen to me very closely: being looked at is not the same as being seen.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“On the contrary, I’m too weak for it. I mean, everyone is, but I am especially susceptible to its false rewards, you know? It’s designed to addict you, to prey on your insecurities and use them to make you stay. It exploits everybody’s loneliness and promises us community, approval, friendship. Honestly, in that sense, social media is a lot like the Church of Scientology. Or QAnon. Or Charles Manson. And then on top of that—weaponizing a person’s isolation—it convinces every user that she is a minor celebrity, forcing her to curate some sparkly and artificial sampling of her best experiences, demanding a nonstop social performance that has little in common with her inner life, intensifying her narcissism, multiplying her anxieties, narrowing her worldview. All while commodifying her, harvesting her data, and selling it to nefarious corporations so that they can peddle more shit that promises to make her prettier, smarter, more productive, more successful, more beloved. And throughout all this, you have to act stupefied by your own good luck. Everybody’s like, Words cannot express how fortunate I feel to have met this amazing group of people, blah blah blah. It makes me sick. Everybody influencing, everybody under the influence, everybody staring at their own godforsaken profile, searching for proof that they’re lovable. And then, once you’re nice and distracted by the hard work of tallying up your failures and comparing them to other people’s triumphs, that’s when the algorithmic predators of late capitalism can pounce, enticing you to partake in consumeristic, financially irresponsible forms of so-called self-care, which is really just advanced selfishness. Facials! Pedicures! Smoothie packs delivered to your door! And like, this is just the surface stuff. The stuff that oxidizes you, personally. But a thousand little obliterations add up, you know? The macro damage that results is even scarier. The hacking, the politically nefarious robots, opinion echo chambers, fearmongering, erosion of truth, etcetera, etcetera. And don’t get me started on the destruction of public discourse. I mean, that’s just my view. Obviously to each her own. But personally, I don’t need it. Any of it.” Blandine cracks her neck. “I’m corrupt enough.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“You couldn’t go anywhere in this town without bumping into God.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Half my life, I have been waiting for someone to yell: Action. The other half, I have been waiting for someone to yell: Cut.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“On the opposite end of the sidewalk, a large woman in her sixties collapsed. Immediately, two people rushed to the woman's side, gingerly tending to her, touching her shoulders and face, speaking to her as though she were their mother—a cherished one—and Joan understood that human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“It was a Wednesday night. Which it always seemed to be in those days.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“He looks at her as though searching for an emotion he misplaced. Fervor, perhaps. Or affection. He has the appearance of a man who has weathered many internal sandstorms and whose convictions—once sharp and exquisite—have lost their definition. Observing James, Blandine is reminded of a swan she saw last February. It has resigned itself to a puddle in the parking lot of a megastore.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“If she had to summarize the plot of contemporary life, the mother would say: it’s about everyone punishing each other for things they didn’t do. And here she is, refusing to look at her baby, punishing him for something he didn’t do.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Reggie crosses the room to his wife, because in fifty-six years of marriage, she has never crossed the room to him.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“She always felt perversely good during a crisis; a crisis justified the panic that rattled the cage of her body at least once a month.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Well, Joan, between you and me, I’m giving mysticism a go, myself. I think I have a real shot. From what I can tell, theism isn’t a necessary prerequisite. All I want is to exit my body.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“It’s just down the street. I’ll walk”
“You’re going to risk your life for pizza?”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“The only benefit of her generalized anxiety disorder was that it prepared Hope for the Worst-Case Scenario; she was never surprised when one materialized because the Worst-Case Scenario was where she spent most of her time.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“I'm so sick of violence against women disguised as validation.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Joan apologized three more times, then returned to her seat, feeling evil. As usual, when she confronted the world about one of its problems, the world suggested that the problem was Joan.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Rules mean nothing to babies”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“James watches a line of ants march out of the kitchen drain, up the sink, into his life.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“On a hot night in Apartment C4, Blandine Watkins exits her body.

“Are you?”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Joan's body contorts with desire to be elsewhere”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“I’m surprised I called you good. Not because I think you’re bad - it would be absurd to describe a whole person as good or bad. You’re just a series of messy, contradicting behaviours like everyone else. Those behaviours can become patterns or instincts, and some are better than others. But as long as you’re alive, the jury’s out.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“I think that we see whatever we fear, whatever we want. We look at the world, absorb thirty percent of its data, and our subconscious fills in the rest.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“…if you collide with someone, you must be prepared to reside inside their psychology indefinitely, and this is the burden of a lifetime. You are pathologically porous, you inhabit every emotion you see, and you may be a prophet, but if you are, you’re a late bloomer because no prophecies have descended upon you yet…”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“People are dangerous because they are contagions. They infect you with or without your consent; they lure you onto paths you wouldn’t have chosen; they commandeer you.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Listen to me. Honestly people, listen to me. There is nothing after this, ok? So don’t live like you have an Act III. There is no surprise footage after the credits roll. Same goes for everyone you love. I can’t reveal how I know this, I had to sign an NDA, you just have to trust me. These are your only minutes. What are you going to do with them?”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“Invisible and eternal things are made known through visible and temporal things. —Hildegard von Bingen, Benedictine abbess, 1151”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

“I mean, everyone is, but I am especially susceptible to its false rewards, you know? It’s designed to addict you, to prey on your insecurities and use them to make you stay. It exploits everybody’s loneliness and promises us community, approval, friendship. Honestly, in that sense, social media is a lot like the Church of Scientology. Or QAnon. Or Charles Manson. And then on top of that—weaponizing a person’s isolation—it convinces every user that she is a minor celebrity, forcing her to curate some sparkly and artificial sampling of her best experiences, demanding a nonstop social performance that has little in common with her inner life, intensifying her narcissism, multiplying her anxieties, narrowing her worldview. All while commodifying her, harvesting her data, and selling it to nefarious corporations so that they can peddle more shit that promises to make her prettier, smarter, more productive, more successful, more beloved. And throughout all this, you have to act stupefied by your own good luck. Everybody’s like, Words cannot express how fortunate I feel to have met this amazing group of people, blah blah blah. It makes me sick. Everybody influencing, everybody under the influence, everybody staring at their own godforsaken profile, searching for proof that they’re lovable. And then, once you’re nice and distracted by the hard work of tallying up your failures and comparing them to other people’s triumphs, that’s when the algorithmic predators of late capitalism can pounce, enticing you to partake in consumeristic, financially irresponsible forms of so-called self-care, which is really just advanced selfishness. Facials! Pedicures! Smoothie packs delivered to your door! And like, this is just the surface stuff. The stuff that oxidizes you, personally. But a thousand little obliterations add up, you know? The macro damage that results is even scarier. The hacking, the politically nefarious robots, opinion echo chambers, fearmongering, erosion of truth, etcetera, etcetera. And don’t get me started on the destruction of public discourse. I mean, that’s just my view. Obviously to each her own. But personally, I don’t need it. Any of it.” Blandine cracks her neck. “I’m corrupt enough.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch