Top highlights from Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
River was a beautiful man, inside and outtoo beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us? River was a better actor than me; I was funnier. But I certainly held my own in our scenesno small feat, when I look back decades later. But more important, River just looked at the world in a different way than we all did, and that made him fascinating, and charismatic, and, yes, beautiful, but not in a Gap ad kinda way (though he was that, too)in a there-is-no-one-else-in-the-world-like-him kind of way. Not to mention he was rocketing to stardom, yet you would never know it.
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My grandfather, the wonderful Alton L. Perry, grew up around an alcoholic father, and as a result, he never touched a drink in his life, all ninety-six long, wonderful years of it. I am not my grandfather.
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Do you know what St. Peter says to everyone who tries to get into heaven?" ..."Peter says, 'Don't you have any scars?' And when most would respond proudly, 'Well, no, no I don't,' Peter says, 'Why not? Was there nothing worth fighting for?
Matthew Perry,
Friends, mes amours et cette chose terrible
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And if youre going to blame your parents for the bad stuff, you also have to give them credit for the good stuff.
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Now, all these years later, Im certain that I got famous so I would not waste my entire life trying to get famous. You have to get famous to know that its not the answer. And nobody who is not famous will ever truly believe that.
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I sometimes do want to tell God to go fuck himself for making my road so hard.
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I think you actually have to have all of your dreams come true to realize they are the wrong dreams.
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Im not the biggest fan of confrontation. I ask a lot of questions. Just not out loud.
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When someone does something nice for someone else, I see God. But you cant give away something you dont have. So, I try to improve myself daily. When those moments come and I am needed, Ive worked out my shit, and do what we are all here for, which is simply to help other people.
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If I had to do it all over again, would I still audition for Friends? You bet your ass I would. Would I drink again? You bet your ass I would. If I didnt have alcohol to soothe my nerves and help me have fun, I would have leaped off a tall building sometime in my twenties.
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I've been able to get most people I've wanted, but this one still hurts. Which just shows that the exception proves the rule: when I can get someone, I have to leave them before they leave me, because I'm not enough and I'm about to be found out, but when someone I want doesn't choose me, that just proves I'm not enough and I've been found out. Heads they win, tails I lose. Either way, to this day if someone mentions her name, my stomach clenches.
Matthew Perry,
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
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Being in a kitchen always brings to mind God. He showed up to me in a kitchen, of course, and in doing so, saved my life. God is always there for me now, whenever I clear my channel to feel his awesomeness. Its hard to believe, given everything, that he still shows up for us mortals, but he does, and thats the point: love always wins.
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God is everywhereyou just have to clear your channel, or youll miss it.
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I am no saintnone of us arebut once you have been at deaths door and you dont die, you would think you would be bathed in relief and gratitude. But that isnt it at allinstead, you look at the difficult road ahead of you to get better and you are pissed. Something else happens, too. You are plagued by this nagging question: Why have I been spared?
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My mind is out to kill me, and I know it. I am constantly filled with a lurking loneliness, a yearning, clinging to the notion that something outside of me will fix me. But I had had all that the outside had to offer!
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Do you know what St. Peter says to everyone who tries to get into heaven?" ..."Peter says, 'Don't you have any scars?' And when most would respond proudly, 'Well, no, no I don't,' Peter says, 'Why not? Was there nothing worth fighting for?
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Something was wrong, very wrong. This was not a dull, throbbing pain, like a headache; it wasnt even a piercing, stabbing pain, like the pancreatitis Id had when I was thirty. This was a different kind of Pain. Like my body was going to burst. Like my insides were trying to force their way out. This was the no-fucking-around kind of Pain.
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You are everything I never knew that I always wanted.
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But you cant give away something you dont have. So, I try to improve myself daily. When those moments come and I am needed, Ive worked out my shit, and do what we are all here for, which is simply to help other people.
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if you spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror, you will crash your car.
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I stashed that pill in my pocket, and I swear to God I think if I'd never taken it, none of the next three decades would have gone the way they did. Who knows? I just know it was really bad.
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These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
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My mind is out to kill me, and I know it. I am constantly filled with a lurking loneliness, a yearning, a clinging to the notion that something outside of me will fix me. But I had had all that outside had to offer!
Matthew Perry,
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
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Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?
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After that, I don't think I spoke for another week because I had realized that my greatest fear had come true, which is that I did this to myself. There was one, upside, though. A fourteen-day coma makes it very simple to quit smoking.
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Discover, uncover, and discard was one of the major mantras at Cirque,
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Years later, my father, too, would take his own meaningful walk: he had had a bad night on the drink where he fell through some bushes or something, and he talked to Debbie about it the following morning and she said, Is this the way you want to live your life? And he said, nothen he went for a walk and quit drinking and hasnt had a drop since. Excuse me? You went for a walk and quit drinking? I have spent upward of $7 million trying to get sober. I have been to six thousand AA meetings. (Not an exaggeration, more an educated guess.) Ive been to rehab fifteen times. Ive been in a mental institution, gone to therapy twice a week for thirty years, been to deaths door. And you went for a fucking walk? Ill tell you where you can take a walk. But my dad cant write a play, star on Friends, help the helpless. And he doesnt have $7 million to spend on anything. Life has its trade-offs, I suppose. This begs the questionwould I trade places with him? Why dont we get to that one later?
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River was a beautiful man, inside and outtoo beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us? River was a better actor than me; I was funnier. But I certainly held my own in our scenesno small feat, when I look back decades later. But more important, River just looked at the world in a different way than we all did, and that made him fascinating, and charismatic, and, yes, beautiful, but not in a Gap ad kinda way (though he was that, too)in a there-is-no-one-else-in-the-world-like-him kind of way. Not to mention he was rocketing to stardom, yet you would never know it.
Matthew Perry,
Friends Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing
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