Simone Elkeles · 281 pages
Rating: (6.5K votes)
“You can't appreciate a great day unless you've experienced bad ones." - Rabbi Glassman”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from How to Ruin My Teenage Life
“From the moment I laid eyes on you I couldn't stop looking at you. From the moment we talked I couldn't stop arguing with you. From the moment we kissed I couldn't stop kissing you. And from the moment we shared our hopes, fears and insecurities I couldn't stop loving you.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from How to Ruin My Teenage Life
“I flip open my phone to text Jessica:
Me: Guess who's pregnant?
Jess: u?
Me: Get real.
Jess: ur mom?
Me: yep
Jess: Mazel tov!?
Me: Don't congratulate me, plz
Jess: Could b worse
Me: How?
Jess: Could be u?
Me: I'm a virgin.
Jess: Nobody's perfect.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from How to Ruin My Teenage Life
“..Some things aren't measured by their size, but by their importance.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from How to Ruin My Teenage Life
“You know what your problem is?" I ask him.
"Yes. I have a daughter who insists she knows everything."
"That's not your problem, Aba. That's your blessing.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from How to Ruin My Teenage Life
“...only one deaf God, who cannot see, remains—claiming all of creation as His own. If people would invest one hundredth of their devotion to this God in the living brothers and sisters amongst whom they stand, we might have a chance of surviving one another. As it is...”
― Timothy Findley, quote from Pilgrim
“It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries--we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?
...
Something has happened where we've decided on a personal level that it's all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from The Pale King
“Trip smiles at me when I don’t respond. He thinks he’s won. But I can’t help it. I have to do it. I rear back and hit Trip in the fucking face as hard as I can. He falls to the floor like a stone, and Mr. Madison rushes from behind his desk. He calls for security, but they don’t need to come. I’m done here.”
― quote from Smart, Sexy and Secretive
“The man was useless as tits on a bull, but he didn't deserve to die like that.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from High Noon
“I couldn't buy the lice off a sick cat," the cabbie answered from the very depths of self-deprecation.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm
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