Koren Zailckas · 342 pages
Rating: (21.6K votes)
“I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight...I agree.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“But in college, we can wear our alcohol abuse as proudly as our university sweatshirts; the two concepts are virtually synonymous.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“I’ve been thinking I’d like to be Daisy; I’d like to have someone like Gatsby stare at my house for whole years and never stop dreaming of me”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“I'm sick of the ignorance that lack of funding has generated, of the fathers who apporach me at dinner parties with their four-year-old girls clasped to their pant legs and say, "Yeah, but studies say kids can buy drugs more easily than they can buy alcohol." To which I always respond, "I guess that means you keep heroin in your liquor cabinet?”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“But lately, when I’m drunk, I feel a hostility that I’ve never known before. It is a tension deep in my gut that makes me want to yell until my face is red, knock over glasses with the back of my hand, and kick people I don’t know in the shins.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“I am aware that somewhere along the line, I've subconsciously turned down the pitch of my speech, like a silencer of a gun that softens the sound of its firing. Now, even when I yell, I don't feel like I am using my full voice.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“By the same token, I think it's time that we allow ourselves to experience real anger as women. And I don't mean that passive aggressive dance that we've employed for too many years. It's not real anger if it is implied or a few degrees removed, if it takes the form of whispering, or cold shoulders, or silent treatment. Real anger is what popular culture would have us be afraid of, based on the fact that it is not courteous, elegant, or feminine.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“For the next four years, they will again and again tout themselves as “real” and I will be too naïve to know that anyone who uses that designation is disguising a representation of immense falsity”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“One night, Tess finds me sobbing during the health segment of the evening news. Scientists have discovered scarred cells from cardiac arrest fall away over time, and she can't understand how sadly hopeful that is. To me, it means that the human heart has the capacity to heal itself.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“It's meant I will act like less of an asshole, but feel much more like one.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“That's the thing about social drinking: In the end, it's the drinking that creates the scene, not the other way around. You grow to relish the buzz, regardless of the situation. Once you're there, really there inside that moment, with its neighbourly warmth and conversation, it's hard to tell what's responsible for producing emotion. What's responsible for the light-headed feeling? Is it the Molson, or the boy who's running his fingers through the ends of your hair? Are you chatty because you're drunk, or because you're connecting with someone on a level that you have never before experienced?”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“i feel like the squirrels that so often run in front of our car
& then stand paralyzed in the forward crunch of the tires
i’m torn between the compulsion to run
& the urge to stand still & hope the danger will pass”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“For the first month of school, writing is its own upper. Pounding on my computer keys feels like playing the piano, like arranging words into harmony that sings back to me.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
“Even years from now, once I've stopped drinking, I will never stop trusting extremes. I will always believe that anything worth having is worth having in excess. The good things are worth hoarding until you have a cookie-fat ass, sex-aching loins, joy that fires through you like popping popcorn, or love, the weakness at the sight of some boy who makes your chest ache like indigestion. If it's good for you, it ought to be good for you in any amount, and you should track down every available bit of it. And if it's toxic, if it turns your liver into a hard little rock of scar tissue, or curls your memory at the edges like something burned in a fire, or makes your stomach flop, or your mind ache, or your personality contorted, you shouldn't buy into the bullshit about temperance.”
― Koren Zailckas, quote from Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
Koren Zailckas
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“We had for so long accepted her obedience to our will that when it ceased to be given naturally, it came as a considerable chock; yet there was no option but to accept the change, strange and bewildering as it was, for obedience cannot be extorted.”
― Kamala Markandaya, quote from Nectar in a Sieve
“Sometimes love not only lifts you to the ceiling, it also keeps your eyes there.”
― Janette Rallison, quote from My Fair Godmother
“You two are cracked," Tod snapped.
My smile widened. "Says the undead man in love with the soulless pop star.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Save
“Feel fee to be a usin' anythin' in the house, an' if there be anythin' thet ya be needin', make a list. I go to town most saturdays fer supplies, an' I can be a pickin' it up then. When ya feel more yerself like, ya might want to come along an' do yer own choosin'.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love Comes Softly
“ "I gave up a world for you."
He glared at me, not giving me anything.
I kept right on going. "I thought, perhaps, when I learned I had powers, I might be able to use them to go home," his eyes flashed but that was all I got so I kept on going, "but not for good. My father isn't dead." Another flash. "He's alive and at home and living maybe with a fake Circe. He'll know the difference, though, I KNOW it. He's out of his mind with worry, I know that too. He's wondering where I am and if I'm okay and how to get me back. I also know that. I know that and I know that my life was good. I loved my life. I loved my home. I loved my job. I had a lot of people who loved me that loved me back." I sucked in a breath and then whispered, "But as much as your world scared me, as much as our practices repulsed me, I still chose you."
His torso jerked, it was almost imperceptible, but I caught it.
I kept at him. "I gave up my world for you, Lahn. I sat at your side through things people in my world would find loathsome and I did it with my head held high. I even felt 'pride' that I could endure, that I could be a good queen to you.......Everything I did in this fucking place, even before I fell in love with you, was for...fucking...YOU." ”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from The Golden Dynasty
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