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
See more on GoodReads
“while they read and talked together, there was opened before them the great book wherein God has written, in the language of mountain, and tree, and sky, and flower, and brook, the things that make truly wise those who pause to read.”
― Harold Bell Wright, quote from The Shepherd of the Hills
“He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of human life.”
― Rudyard Kipling, quote from Kim
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. It’s poison every single time.”
― Addison Moore, quote from Ethereal
“That's what happens when you're thirty-seven years old: you do the things you always did but the result is somehow different.”
― Michael Lewis, quote from Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Jace said softly from my right.
"Call me that again, and I'll tell the whole Pride you sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear."
"I don't sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear. Hell, I don't sleep in any underwear.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Pride
Wicked
Grass
Shatter Me Complete...
Pandora's Star
Shanna
EnticedBookQuoters 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.
