Quotes from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

Chelsea Handler ·  213 pages

Rating: (91.9K votes)


“There are two kinds of people I don't trust: people who don't drink and people who collect stickers.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall ALL the time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“Have you ever experienced a pain so sharp in your heart that it's all you can do to take a breath? It's a pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy; you wouldn't want to pass it on to anyone else for fear he or she might not be able to bear it. It's the pain of being betrayed by a person with whom you've fallen in love. It's not as serious as death, but it feels a whole lot like it, and as I've come to learn, pain is pain any way you slice it.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“My relationship with my father had been on the proverbial fritz since the time I was fifteen and called the police to report him for child molesting. He had never molested me, but I wanted to have a party that weekend and needed him out of the house.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



“I had to feign interest in all this nonsense until I could ask when I could come over and sit on his face. I didn't say that out loud, of course. I never say the things I really want to. If I did, I'd have no friends.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I don't like the word 'alcoholic'. I like to think of myself as an advanced drinker.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“Ivory's the kind of girl who gets drunk and immediately starts slurring. I have a lot of friends like that, and I think it's because it makes me look 'more together.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“Our relationship finally ended when he took to waking me up in the wee hours of the morning when he would go surfing. He thought it might be fun to have me come watch. "Fun for who?" I wanted to ask. I had never asked him to come to Happy Hour and watch me drink.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I don't know what it is about accents that makes me want to get undressed and high-five myself.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



“He was all emotion all the time, constantly talking about his feelings and his profound love for her. He was minutes from getting his first period. He wrote poems too. It's my personal belief that if men are writing poems, they're making up for something else like a big hair back, or one ball. Not that one ball is a bad thing. Especially since I don't know any females who are dying to their their hands on a set of balls. The way I see it, the less balls, the better.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I never say the things I really want to. If I did, I'd have no friends.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“Lydia was the kind of friend whom people referred to as a 'party favor' -- always fun to be around but she doesn't have any patience for suffering unless it's her own.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I was in a tailspin of confusion I hadn't experienced since the first time I heard George W. Bush speak.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I look hot and, most of all, skinny. I love the day after throwing up. I felt like a feather.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



“One of my girlfriends was getting married. This was becoming an annoying pattern.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“We got to his place and it looked a lot like his personality. Just a bunch of space filler, nothing to really wow you. It looked like he had bought a lot of stuff from IKEA and then decided to refinish it at home. Everything was neat and tidy, but you wouldn't want any of it for yourself.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“It's not the concept of marriage I have a problem with. I'd like to get married too. A couple times. It's the actual wedding that pisses me off.
The problem is that everyone who gets married seems to think that they are the first person in the entire universe to do it, and that the year leading up to the event revolves entirely around them. You have to throw them showers, bachelorette weekends, buy a bridesmaid dress, and then buy a ticket to some godforsaken town wherever they decide to drag you. If you're really unlucky, they'll ask you to recite a poem at their wedding. That's just what I want to do- monitor my drinking until I'm done with my public service announcement. And what do we get out of it, you ask? A dry piece of chicken and a roll in the hay with their hillbilly cousin. I could get that at home, thanks.
Then they have the audacity to go shopping and pick out their own gifts. I want to know who the first person was who said this was okay. After spending all that money on a bachelorette weekend, a shower, and often a flight across the country, they expect you to go to Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn and do research? Then they send you a thank-you note applauding you for such a thoughtful gift. They're the one who picked it out! I always want to remind the person that absolutely no thought went into typing in a name and having a salad bowl come up.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“It was Valentine's Day and I had spent the day in bed with my life partner, Ketel One. The two of us watched a romance movie marathon on TBS Superstation that made me wonder how people who write romantic comedies can sleep at night.

At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall all-the-time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer.

Then, within the two hour time frame of the movie, the couple meet, fall in love, fall out of love, break up, and then just before the end of the movie, they happen to bump into each other by "coincidence" somewhere absolutely absurd, like by the river. This never happens in real life. The last time I bumped into an ex-boyfriend was at three o'clock in the morning at Rite Aid. I was ringing up Gas-X and corn removers.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I had to sit down and explain to [her friend] that AA was for quitters”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



“Then they have the audacity to go shopping and pick out their own gifts. I want to know who the first person was who said this was okay. After spending all that money on a bachelorette weekend, a shower, and often a flight across the country, they expect you to go to Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn and do research? Then they send you a thank-you note applauding you for such a thoughtful gift. They're the one who picked it out!”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I'm not that shallow, asshole. I don't need money. It's way more important for them to be good-looking.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I don't like to overdose. Call me old-fashioned.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“Even if times are tough and you're enduring a terrible heartache, it's important to focus your anger on a vibrator, not another person.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“There are many ways to get to know someone, and my favorite is seeing them naked in Happy Baby pose.

I also feel it is important to have sex soon after meeting someone in order to find out if you have sexual chemistry together. Otherwise, you could wait two to three months after you start dating someone only to discover that your new boyfriend is bad in bed, or even worse, is into anal beads and duct tape.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



“Seeing your mother naked is not something you easily recover from. Seeing your mother naked and jumping from one side of a king-sized bed to the other with a nurse's hat on while your father, who is also naked, is chasing her with a bandanna around his neck, is reason to put yourself up for adoption.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“When I get married, I'm gonna register at Bank of America.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“I had always dreamed of being a professional escort but never thought that there was any real money in it.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“We went to a Barnes and Noble, where I picked up an unauthorized
biography of M.C. Hammer, and not wanting to overload her on her first
book, I steered Dumb Dumb toward a Choose Your Own Adventure.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands


“After discovering him in his threesome, I spent the next two weeks in bed suffering from a severe case of vagina elbow. It's a condition not unlike tennis elbow, but you get it from masturbating.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands



About the author

Chelsea Handler
Born place: in Livingston, New Jersey, The United States
Born date February 25, 1975
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“was also witty and likable, intelligent”
― Kathleen Baldwin, quote from Mistaken Kiss


“I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night—in the moments before I pass off into sleep—ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy.”
― Daniel Keyes, quote from Des fleurs pour Algernon


“I believe that the children of this generation have decayed with the ease of their lives, and that their great fortune has deprived them of any ambitions or real satisfactions. Surely the weakness of our monarchy in Saudi Arabia is bound up in our addiction to extravagance. I fear it will be our undoing.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle


“Hem anlatsana bana :
nasıl oluyor da çıldırmıyoruz öleceğimizi bildiğimiz halde?
Yoksa, ben ölmem gibi mi geliyor insana.
Dayım söylüyor :
cephede herkes böyle düşünürmüş,
doğru mu?

Yoksa ölmeye de mi alışıyoruz
ihtiyarlamaya alıştığımız gibi.
Bence bunun sebebi :
herbirimizdeki kısalığına rağmen
yaşamak daha kuvvetli ölümden.”
― Nâzım Hikmet Ran, quote from Human Landscapes from My Country: An Epic Novel in Verse


“You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"

It will not."

If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."

I, also M. Ratchett."

What's wrong with my proposition?"

Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Mord im Orientexpress


Interesting books

Juliet, Naked
(35.7K)
Juliet, Naked
by Nick Hornby
To Sir Phillip, With Love
(25.7K)
To Sir Phillip, With...
by Julia Quinn
Personal Demon
(18.7K)
Personal Demon
by Kelley Armstrong
Beautiful
(4.9K)
Beautiful
by Amy Reed
Possession
(9.4K)
Possession
by Elana Johnson
The Candymakers
(18.4K)
The Candymakers
by Wendy Mass

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.