Quotes from How to Be Popular

Meg Cabot ·  288 pages

Rating: (20K votes)


“Clearly," Jason said, "you are not doing nothing. You are most definitely doing something. What it looks like you're doing is pouring packets of sugar on Lauren Moffat's head."

Shhh," I said. "It's snowing. But only on Lauren." I shook more sugar out of the packets. "'Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter,'" I called softly down to Lauren in my best Jimmy Stewart imitation. "'Merry Christmas, you old building and Loan.'"

Jason started cracking up, and I had to hush him as Becca saw my sugar supply running low and hastened to hand me more packets.

Stop laughing so loud," I said to Jason. "You'll spoil this beautiful moment for them." I sprinkled more sugar over the side of the balcony. "'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“I think we're given multiple chances to meet multiple soulmates. Sure, you could meet a soulmate in highschool. But that doesn't mean if you don't act on it, you'll never meet anyone else. You will, just at a time that's more convenient for you.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“It was only when they'd rounded the corner toward the Penguin that we finally sat up, Laughing semi-hysterically.

"Oh my God, did you see her face?" Becca asked between guffaws. "'There's something in my hair!'"

"That was fantastic, Crazytop," Jason said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Best master plan yet.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“This was something you had to work through on you own," Jason said. "Besides, I knew you'd do the right thing."

"Oh, right," I said. I wanted to throw something at him. I really did. "And if I hadn't?"

Now Jason brandished something he'd been holding behind his back. It was a golf club.

"I figured Big Bertha here would drive them away," he said.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“Tell me what game Steph Landry and I used to play in the big dirt pile they made while they were digging my family’s pool, back when we were both seven, or I’ll know you’re an alien replacement and you’ve got the real Steph up in your mother ship!”

I glared at him. “G.I. Joe meets Spelunker Barbie,” I said. “And stop being so ridiculous. We have to go. We’re going to end up at a bad table for lunch.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular



“I remembered lying there in my wet panties, going, “What do I do now?” Jason was asleep, but even if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have told him what had happened. I was convinced I’d never have heard the end of it. “Wet the bed like a baby!” he’d cry. Well, knowing Jason, he probably wouldn’t have said any such thing. But in my feverish four-year-old brain, I was convinced he wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore if he knew I was a bed wetter. Also, of course, it would come up every time I beat him at anything: “Well, okay, maybe you’re better at Candy Land, but at least I’m not a bed wetter.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“And the truth is, I’d felt kind of a thrill about wearing Jason’s Big Boy pants. I was a sick kid, even way back then.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


“Guys don't like it when you get too heavy, I've noticed. They especially don't like it when you try to talk too much about the future. They're like little woodland animals. Everything's well and good when you're just doling out the nuts and everything's cool. But the minute you bring out the net to try to catch them - even if it's for their own good, like to help them escape a forest fire - all hell breaks loose.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from How to Be Popular


About the author

Meg Cabot
Born place: in Bloomington, Indiana, The United States
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Popular quotes

“Adeseori, un om rabda in tacere ani de-a randul, indura resemnat cele mai crunte pedepse, dar deodata il vezi rabufnind dintr-o nimica toata, pentru te miri ce lucru neinsemnat, incat ramai uluit si te intrebi de mai e in toate mintile; caci ceea ce face el atunci pare de-a dreptul o nebunie.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead


“SCIENTISTS HAD KNOWN since the late nineteenth century that tobacco smoke contains carbon monoxide. Victorian scientists had even been able to calculate the amount of gas in the smoke: up to 4 percent in cigarette smoke, and in Gettler’s own choice of tobacco, the cigar, between 6 and 8 percent. Gettler’s latest work theorized that chain smokers might suffer from low-level carbon monoxide poisoning. He speculated in a 1933 report that “headaches experienced by heavy smokers are due in part to the inhalation of carbon monoxide.” But his real interest lay less in their symptoms than in how much of the poison had accumulated in their blood, and how that might affect his calculations on cause of death. He approached that problem in his usual, single-minded way. To get a better sense of carbon monoxide contamination from smoking tobacco, Gettler selected three groups of people to compare: persons confined to a state institution in the relatively clean air of the country; street cleaners who worked in a daily, dusty cloud of car exhaust; and heavy smokers. As expected, carboxyhemoglobin blood levels for country dwellers averaged less than 1 percent saturation. The levels for Manhattan street cleaners were triple that amount, a solid 3 percent. But smokers came in the highest, higher than he’d expected, well above the nineteenth-century calculations. Americans were inhaling a lot more tobacco smoke than they had once done, and their saturation levels ranged from 8 to 19 percent. (The latter was from a Bronx cab driver who admitted to smoking six cigarettes on his way to Gettler’s laboratory, lighting one with the stub of another as he went.) It was safe to assume, Gettler wrote with his usual careful precision, that “tobacco smoking appreciably increases the carbon monoxide in the blood and cannot be ignored in the interpretation of laboratory results.”     THE OTHER NOTABLE poison in tobacco smoke was nicotine.”
― Deborah Blum, quote from The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York


“Boyfriend/Girlfriend-Centered This may be the easiest trap of all to fall into. I mean, who hasn’t been centered on a boyfriend or girlfriend at one point? Let’s pretend Brady centers his life on his girlfriend, Tasha. Now, watch the instability it creates in Brady. TASHA’S ACTIONS BRADY’S REACTIONS Makes a rude comment: “My day is ruined.” Flirts with Brady’s best friend: “I’ve been betrayed.   I hate my friend.” “I think we should date other people”: “My life is over. You don’t love me anymore.” The ironic thing is that the more you center your life on someone, the more unattractive you become to that person. How’s that? Well, first of all, if you’re centered on someone, you’re no longer hard to get. Second, it’s irritating when someone builds their entire emotional life around you. Since their security comes from you and not from within themselves, they always need to have those sickening “where do we stand” talks. if who I am is what I have and what I have is lost, then who am I? ANONYMOUS When I began dating my wife, one of the things that attracted me most was that she didn’t center her life on me. I’ll never forget the time she turned me down (with a smile and no apology) for a very important date. I loved it! She was her own person and had her own inner strength. Her moods were independent of mine. You can usually tell when a couple becomes centered on each other because they are forever breaking up and getting back together. Although their relationship has deteriorated, their emotional lives and identities are so intertwined that they can never fully let go of each other. Believe me, you’ll be a better boyfriend or girlfriend if you’re not centered on your partner. Independence is more attractive than dependence. Besides, centering your life on another doesn’t show that you love them, only that you’re dependent on them. Have as many girlfriends or boyfriends as you’d like, just don’t get obsessed with or centered on them, because, although there are exceptions, these relationships are usually about as stable as a yo-yo.”
― Sean Covey, quote from The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens


“She looked pretty lively for a girl obsessed with death. ”
― Marlene Perez, quote from Dead Is the New Black


“The kneading of memory makes the dough of fiction, which, as we know, can go on yeasting for ever...”
― Barry Unsworth, quote from Sacred Hunger


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