Shopgirl Quotes

“It's pain that changes our lives.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“...it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She has learned that her body is precious and it mustn't be offered carelessly ever again, as it holds a direct connection to her heart.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She tried to get even with him through psychological warfare but couldn't, because he didn't care.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“[her] mind blackens. The blackness is not a thought, but if it could be pressed into a thought, if a chemical from a dropper could be dripped onto it causing its color and essence to become visible, it would take the shape of this sentence: Why does no one want me?”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Only then does he realize what he has done to Mirabelle, how wanting a square inch of her and not all of her has damaged them both, and how he cannot justify his actions except that, well, it was life.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people and as much time should be spent on it as possible.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“...just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She was feeling her bohemian oats.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“For a while, Mirabelle believes there will be a moment when he will cave in and let himself love her, but eventually she lets the idea go. She hits bottom. She dwells in the muck for several months, not depressed exactly, but involved in a mourning that at first she thinks is for Ray but soon realizes is for the loss of her old self.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He gave her his phone number, in a peculiar reversal of dating procedure. She might have considered kissing him, even after the horrible first date, but he just didn’t seem to know what to do. However, Jeremy does have one outstanding quality. He likes her. And this quality in a person makes them infinitely interesting to the person who is being liked.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“So, I can hurt now, or hurt later.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle is attractive; it's just that she is never the first or second girl chosen.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle replaces the absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind. The books are mostly nineteenth-century novels in which women are poisoned or are doing the poisoning. She does not read these books as a romantic lonely hearts turning pages in the isolation of her room, not at all. She is instead an educated spirit with a sense of irony. She loves the gloom of these period novels, especially as kitsch, but beneath it all she finds that a part of her indentifies with all that darkness.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“His view of the world is one that keeps his blood pressure low, sweeping the cholesterol from his relaxed, freeway-sized arteries. Everyone knows he is going to live till age ninety, although the question that goes begging is, “for what?”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Unlike Ray Porter, his love is fearless and without reservation.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle is not affected by a man’s failures to approach her, as her own self-depreciating attitude never allows the idea that he would in the first place.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“It is the perfect wrong time for Jeremy to do to Mirabelle what she had done to him - call him up for a quick fix - because;, in a sense, she is now betrothed. Her first date with someone who treated her well obligates her to faithfulness, at least until the relationship is explored.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“As she sits in a booth, it never occurs to her to observe herself, and thus she is spared the image of a girl sitting alone in a bar on Saturday night. A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps within her, waiting to be stirred. .... She keeps working to make connections, but the pile of near misses is starting to overwhelm her. What Mirabelle needs is some omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one over here, the one sitting in the bar by herself, and then to find her counterpart and bring him to her.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He doesn’t understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“In spite of her depression, Mirabelle likes to think of herself as humourous. She can, when the occasion calls, become a wisecracker and buoyant party girl. This mood, Mirabelle thinks, sometimes makes her the centre of attention at parties and gatherings. The truth is that these episodes of gaiety merely raise her to normal, but for Mirabelle the feeling is so exceptional that she believes herself to be standing out.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“She has simply never quite learned to walk or hold herself comfortably”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“He knows only what is right in front of him; she is aware of every incoming sensation that glances obliquely against her soft, fragile core”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“To Mirabelle, the idea of being an object of obsession is alluring and represents a powerful love. She fails to understand, however, that men become obsessive over beautiful women because they want no one else to have them, but they fall in love with women like Mirabelle because they want a certain, specific part of them.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“The overhead lights reflect in the glass countertop and mingle in the gray and black of the gloves, resulting in a mother-of-pearl swirl that sometimes sends Mirabelle into a shallow hypnotic dream.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl

“Mirabelle is not sparkling tonight, because she works only in gears, and tonight she is in the wrong gear. Third gear is her scholarly, perspicacious, witty self; second gear is her happy, giddy, childish self; and first gear is her complaining, helpless, unmotivated self. Tonight she is somewhere midshift, between helpless and childish.”
― Steve Martin, Shopgirl