“Most people lose the ability to see silver linings even though they are always there above us almost every day.”

Pat tells Cliff that people would be much happier if they remembered to look at the clouds. Pat’s optimism has not resulted in a normal life or improved mental health, but he cannot see that yet. He views himself as having a healthier mental outlook than people who become so preoccupied with life that they forget about silver linings. 

“If clouds are blocking the sun, there will always be a silver lining that reminds me to keep on trying.”

Pat uses silver linings as a symbol of hope. Even when clouds threaten to hide the light of the sun, enough of the light manages to seep around the edges that it reminds him the sun is always there. Pat is determined to find something good in bad situations. The irony is that he puts his optimism into the already-doomed effort of saving his marriage. 

“It hurts to look at the clouds, but it also helps, like most things that cause pain.”

When Pat looks at the clouds, the sight hurts Pat’s eyes because it exposes them to the sun. He compares the pain of looking at clouds to the pain of exercise, which has the positive result of strengthening his body and helping him burn off stress. Pat identifies certain types of pain as being instructive and worth enduring. However, he sees other types of pain, like losing Nikki, as unhelpful and without purpose. 

“I figure weaker people probably complain about their drugs, but I am not weak and can control my mind pretty well.”

Despite how obvious it is to the reader that Pat is not able to control his mind very well, he insists that he is in control. He does not see incidents like going into a destructive rage at the sound of a Kenny G song as a lack of control over his mind. Towards the end of the novel, when Pat is unable to accept that Nikki—or, Tiffany posing as Nikki—will never see him again, it is further evidence that he is not able to control his mind well. 

“‘You need to know it’s your actions that will make you a good person, not desire.’”

Cliff tells Pat that if he has another violent outburst, he will return to the mental hospital. Pat believes that his positive outlook is what will bring Nikki back to him as well as keep him out of trouble. Cliff is trying to help Pat understand that his good intentions and earnest desires do not matter if they result in negative acts. 

“I am practicing being kind over being right.”

When he meets Tiffany for the first time, Pat does not bring up her dead husband because Ronnie asked him not to, even though he wants to know why she is still wearing her wedding ring. At this stage of the story, Pat is trying to practice kindness because he thinks Nikki would improve, not because he sees the intrinsic value in kindness.

“‘You need to make time for family no matter what happens in your life.’”

Pat’s father tells him that Jake and his mother have missed him. His insistence that family time is important is ironic, given how aggressively he ignores Pat in the early days after his return home. Patrick also ignores his wife and expects her to wait on him. It is not until she gives him her list of demands that he begins to see that he himself has not prioritized family time.

“‘Life is hard, Pat, and children have to be told how hard life can be […] So they will be sympathetic to others. So they will understand that some people have it harder than they do and that a trip through this world can be a wildly different experience, depending on what chemicals are raging through one’s mind.’”

Cliff explains the value of pessimistic books like The Bell Jar. If a child is told that life is easy, the child will be confounded when challenges arise. A person who understands hardship will learn how to better empathize with others and how to feel compassion towards those who suffer. Pat does not see that someone who reads a novel about a character with mental illness might then be better able to understand him.

“‘We have money to feed Pat. We have money to buy Pat a new wardrobe. We have money to buy Pat a home gym. We have money for Pat’s medications. Well then, the way I see it, we have money for a new fucking television set, too.’”

Pat overhears his father and mother arguing about the new TV. Until that point, Pat does not realize the financial burden he has put on his parents. He begins to think that one of the reasons his father ignores him so much is that caring for Pat is so expensive. This makes Pat feel guilty both at the financial strain and at the fact that he is a point of tension between his parents. 

“‘Both of my men are going to start taking care of themselves a little more. You need to get on with your life, and I’m sick and tired of the way your father treats me.’”

Pat’s mother has finally had enough of how needy Pat is and how disagreeable and inconsiderate her husband is. She realizes that she has been enabling Pat by coddling him and making sure he always takes his medication. And she has taught her husband that she is willing to be treated badly, which is one of the reasons why it has persisted so long. Later, the reader learns that Tiffany, despite her mental instability and lack of control over her own life, has been instrumental in helping Pat’s mother take control of hers. 

“The very man who never showed any emotions other than anger was crying.”

When Pat watches the video of his wedding reception, he remembers that his father cried, despite not enjoying the wedding day. Pat’s father is rarely described as anything but curmudgeonly, but something about Pat’s wedding touched him. Pat now understands that his father has a deeper and more complicated emotional life than he realized. 

“‘If Terrell Owens is really depressed or mentally unstable, why do the people I love use it as an excuse to talk bad about him?’”

Pat does not like that the football player Terrell Owens is mocked for his mental illness. Even Jake and Pat’s father make fun of Owens for seeing a therapist and experiencing depression. Pat worries that if they make fun of Owens for those things, they might make fun of him since he also sees a therapist and suffers from depression, in addition to other mental health challenges. Pat does not realize that his brother and father do not understand mental illness well enough to empathize with someone who suffers from it. 

“I can hardly believe how much you wrote. When Tiffany told me you were writing me a letter, I did not expect you to give her two hundred photocopied pages of your diary.”

Writing as Nikki, Tiffany reveals the extent of the mania with which Pat was writing. When he earlier mentioned writing notes to himself about his relationship with Nikki, there was no indication that it was hundreds of pages. Pat’s perspective is that he simply jots down his observations now and then. In reality, he writes compulsively and manically. 

“Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.”

Posing as Nikki, Tiffany writes to Pat, trying to help him see that if novels never had bad endings, there would be few realistic novels. Pat does not see endurance and nobility as potential byproducts of suffering. Tiffany wants Pat to understand that life is not always fair, and that movies deliver a payoff to the viewer that isn’t always possible in real life.

“You are living with another man, you are remarried—what could be worse? I still love you. I will always love you and am only now ready to prove my love for you.”

Pat writes to Nikki. The more that Nikki (Tiffany) protests that they will never be together, and that she loves her new husband, the more aggressively Pat doubles down on his belief that he can win her back. Because he is unstable, his use of the phrase “prove my love” is unsettling, given that he is prone to violent outbursts. It connotes a willingness to act, which runs contrary to the requests that he stop hoping for a reconciliation. 

“‘Pat, I know how you lost your memory. Everyone does. And I think you remember too. Do you?’”

For the first time, Cliff suggests that Pat might already have remembered how he lost his memory. It is never definitively proven that this is the case, but Cliff’s suspicion, if correct, implies a new level of effort that Pat has gone to sustain his delusions. If Pat has already remembered attacking Phillip, his efforts to win Nikki back are even more irrational. 

“‘Life is not a movie.’”

Cliff tells Pat that if he cannot find a way to make progress, they will have to change his methods of treatment, including a possible return to the mental hospital. This does not make sense to Pat, who believes that his movie must have a happy ending. Cliff tries to convince him that life is not a movie, which can be structured, edited, and reshot. Life is a sequence of unpredictable events that one must be able to adapt to in healthy ways. 

“‘But the only thing I could think about,’ she writes, ‘was how Tommy died believing I no longer wanted to have sex with him.’”

Tiffany reveals the source of her own trauma. The last conversation she had with her husband before he died left him thinking that she no longer desired him. The ensuing guilt at never achieving closure with him, or explaining herself better, began a long cycle of self-destructive behavior and grief. Tiffany originally wanted to use Pat to perpetuate her habit of sleeping with strangers to fantasize about Tommy, but Pat becomes a pivotal piece of her own recovery. 

“I still love you in my own fucked-up way.”

Tiffany writes to Pat after revealing that she has posed as Nikki. Tiffany is acutely aware of her own mental issues. She knows the limits of the love she can offer, and that her views are often distorted. The love she offers Pat is tinged with the reality of her mental illness, but it also gives her a way to empathize with him: She knows that they are both doing the best they can, which may make them the ideal support system for one another. 

“I want to drop rocks through the ice so badly, to puncture it, proving that it is weak and temporary, to see the black water rise up and out of the hole I alone will have created.”

As Pat waits for Tiffany, he imagines jumping off the bridge, then of destroying the ice. When he feels the most helpless, he is filled with the compulsion to make a mark proving that he can still affect the world. However, the mark he dreams of making is a destructive one that proves he is strong while something else is weak. His relationship with Tiffany is what will restore his optimism at the end of the story.

“‘I’m a screwed-up person who no longer knows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I said to you in my letter.’”

Tiffany’s therapy has continued to increase her self-awareness throughout the novel. She understands that she has problems communicating, and that her reactions to emotional events are not normal. She tries to make progress on specific problems within herself, while Pat has spent much of the novel trying to change someone else’s mind. 

“Somehow that was enough for me to officially end apart time and roll the credits of my movie without even confronting Nikki.”

Pat describes watching Nikki have the snowball fight with her husband and children. For most of the novel, he has believed that being together with him again will make her happier, and that it is what she wants, even if she can’t admit it. When he sees that she is happy with her new family, he is able to let her go. It is a selfless, compassionate act. He does not cause her additional, unnecessary stress, and he proves that he cares about her happiness. 

“‘I need you, Pat Peoples; I need you so fucking bad.’”

Tiffany makes herself vulnerable to Pat and admits that she needs him. Pat believes that this is her distorted, unique way of telling him that she loves him. Despite his relative inability to control his actions or his mind, Pat has become the steadying force in her life, and he has helped her find optimism about her future.