191 pages
Rating: (11.9K votes)
“It had that kind of open-ended fear to it - like that feeling you get when you're driving and you see a cop. And you're not speeding. You don't have drugs. But you're just thinking, I hope he doesn't notice I'm driving.”
“When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.”
“Bears are simultaneously so graceful and so strong. Bears know who they are, but they often don’t know who you are, which is why they kill you.”
“The list of fun and easily fixed brain diseases is very short.”
“I'm a big fan of pastries the size of a baby that contain enough calories for a year. That seems like an effective use of time.”
“I was a big dreamer and never particularly good at anything--a real dilemma. I wasn't terrible. I was just... okay. If you're terrible, you can write everybody off, like, "I don't know what the hell those idiots are doing?" I knew what those idiots were doing. And I knew that they did it better than me.”
“Sometimes, when you want to be in a place so badly, you'll do anything.”
“I try to think up material that might apply to the subjects they are studying. How many mitochondria does it take to power a cell? One. Because mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. Not ready for prime time, that one.”
“I wake up at 4:30 am to jump on a plane, which is that part of the morning before the earth even exists. Before they've even programmed the Matrix. You walk out of your apartment and the road isn't even there. You walk out of your house, and there's just a guy with a laptop who yells, "We need a road, stat!" "How 'bout a building, Tank!”
“So I’m standing in a tree thirty feet above the pond with my three friends and my friend Pat says, “Dude, jump!” And I look down at the water, which is so far away, and I say, “That doesn’t seem like a good plan.” And they said, “Dude, we already jumped, it’s no biggie. What’s the worst thing that could happen? It’s only watah” (that’s “water” with a Boston accent), which is really flawed logic, that watah logic. I learn later that many bad things historically have happened in water. Shark attacks. Drowning. Bad sex. But my friend Nick makes an argument that in Massachusetts is irrefutable. He’s like, “Do it.” So I do.”
“I thought, Hey, maybe these people shouldn’t be making up holidays to drink more. Maybe if they drank less they might be able to title their newspaper articles more specifically. For example, I would title this last article “Drunk Driver Hits Drunk Walker Drunkety-Drunk I’m So Drunk.”
“It was my first brush with live performance. And delusion. •”
“They really cut to the chase in the urologist’s examination room, and I tried to laugh. If this office were a movie, it would have been rated R.”
“Growing up, I was discouraged from telling personal stories. My dad often used the phrase “Don’t tell anyone.” But not about creepy things. I don’t want to lead you down the wrong path. It would be about insignificant things. Like I wouldn’t make the soccer team and my father would say, “Don’t tell anyone.” And I would say, “They’re gonna know when they show up to the games and I’m not on the team and I’m crying.”
“Looking back on it, could there possible have been a more confusing acronym for trying to keep kids from experimenting with drugs than DARE?
"Kids, we’re here today to DARE you not to do drugs! We DARE you to accept our DARE!"
"Office, does that mean you want us not to do drugs, or to do drugs?"
“We DARE you not to do drugs!”
"But I thought we weren’t supposed to do things We’re dared to do. If you dared me to jump out of a tree, I should do that, right?"
"It’s just an acronym, son."
"What is an acronym?”
“This is my situation. I'm the kind of person who, for fun, writes articles called 'Aviation Club Soars into Orbit!' and an unhappy bully I've never heard of is sending out envoys.”
“I was made to believe that my life was going to be fixed and it wasn't. I'm still the same loser who had flown to Los Angeles on my sister's frequent flier miles just six days before.”
“also put up with it because I couldn’t believe how lucky I was just to be with her. When you’re in a relationship with someone who’s selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it’s this souped-up shine. And you feel like you’re in the club. And you don’t even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.”
“High school is not unlike a Mormon fundamentalist cult where the women are claimed by the older and more powerful.”
“I check my phone messages and email about forty-five times a day. I don’t even know what I’m expecting to get in these messages. Maybe Visa will call and say, “We just realized that we owe you money!” or I’ll get an email from a high school classmate that says, “We’ve reconsidered and we’ve decided you were cool after all.” Whatever”
“If you’re terrible, you can write everybody off, like, “I don’t know what the hell those idiots are doing?” I knew what those idiots were doing. And I knew that they did it better than me. In”
“That one’s yours and that one’s mine.” Like we’re cars. And I don’t feel like I’ve ever been one of the good cars. No one’s ever seen me and said, “I get that one!” They’re more like, “I get that one? Um, okay.” Or even, “I get that one? You owe me.” It’s so sad to think that people are incurring debt based on my appearance. I’d hate to hurt someone’s credit score. So”
“Growing up, I was a big fan of the Indiana Jones movies. I watched them again recently and found them to be misleading. Aspiring archeologists across the world probably show up to their first day of work with their weather-worn fedoras and their whips and they’re like, “Where’s the cavern of jewels?” And their boss is like, “Actually, today we’re gonna start off by dusting thousands of miles of nothing.”
“Well, I’m not sure what happened next, but I ended up peeing on Mrs. Jarvis’s lawn.”
“Girl you spent time with not drinking and screwing. Girl you hang out with when you could have been doing something else. Girl you spent quality time with. Girl you do nice things for. Girl you want to smooch all night.”
He laughs once. “I guess that makes you my girlfriend.”
“How's this for honesty?" Luke said abruptly. "I want you..."
"I don't have sex with men I've just met," she murmured.
He rested his hands on her hips, the warmth of his touch searing her flesh. "Would you consider making an exception?”
“I push him off, sit up an start puttin my clothes to rights. He's made a heroic effort to undress me.
You work fast, I says.
Yer a moving target, I hafts. Here, he says, lemme help.
I button, he unbuttons. I tuck, he untucks.
I slap his hand. I'll do it myself, I says.”
“heavy with The Cure and Depeche Mode, groups with lush instrumentals and heavy-duty lyrics about love, lust and life.”
“Sander is a great boyfriend. He’s super attentive, dresses well, loves to shop, and never even looks at other girls.”
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