The Intern's Handbook

Sometimes pain can bring about clarity and remind us we’re still breathing.

Clarity equals victory. Look at successful people. Do you really think they have seven effective habits? Fuck no. Who’s got time for that? They have one effective habit: DOING. When you are a ‘doer’ you lap the rest of the rats in the race.

That's what I love about you. You're a freak. Like me.

Everything is so fleeting and impermanent. It’s enough to drive you bat shit crazy.

I’m beginning to get the feeling that confession is what we need in order to forgive ourselves.

the more he learned, the more he realized that there is too much to learn in anyone’s lifetime.

Monsters like us can learn to be human beings from watching movies

I am wet shoes. I am cold, damp breath. I am sweating hands. I am gravity crushing the grass beneath my boots. I am Kevlar and metal and lead. I am laser sighting. I am death. And I am coming.

You always remember the things that rub you the right way or the wrong way. The positive and negative are both powerful memory reinforcement tools. Negative is more powerful than positive, which is based on your survival instincts. But you can't remember something that doesn't touch you in a positive or negative way. And this is our ultimate goal. We must learn from the wallflowers, life's most perfect unintentional losers.

Our minds are not interested in truth. They are our private twenty-four hour news cycle putting a constant spin on reality. It's like The Matrix. Everyone is getting plugged into the Bullshit Express.

The job is the job, and I have no choice but to get it done. Bitching about it will only distract me, and let's be honest, has bitching about anything ever helped anybody?

Clarity equals victory. Look at successful people. Do you really think they have seven effective habits? F*** no. Who’s got time for that? They have one effective habit: DOING. When you are a “doer” you lap the rest of the rats in the race.

Interns are invisible. You can tell an executive your name a hundred times and that executive will never remember it because they have no respect for someone at the bottom of the barrel, working for free.

Fight or flight is bullshit. Flight is the default. Fight only happens when flight is not an option. Because fight requires a sharp committed mind that can think ten steps ahead.

Above all, you must be humble. When you are humble, you are like a sponge, taking in the world and letting it fill you with the knowledge of what is real. Pride and arrogance are a dry sponge. You learn nothing. You think you know everything when it's not even possible to know everything. And then you're the dumbass with the surprised look on your face when someone puts a bullet in you.

They're more interested in their fucking iPhones than doing their jobs. I can see the glow of their phone screens on their faces as they check e-mail, update their Facebook slaveware, dream of living, breathing, and fucking through the anonymity of text and memes.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

We are not antiheroes with a silver lining. And we are sure as hell not relatable or sympathetic.

Sometimes you can get a shark to eat itself if you fill the water with enough blood.

Sometimes doing what's necessary seems crazy but it's the highest form of sanity.

However, I'm beginning to get the feeling that confession is what we need in order to forgive ourselves.

Not only did I rise above my drooling-hunchback-in-the-dungeon status, but I also made our meeting seem like a chance encounter, one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs known to man. Thanks to chick flicks, the concept of true love being orchestrated by the rough, construction worker hands of fate is an easy sell.

We are in our own dark Eden where the snake is not selling the Tree of Knowledge. He is selling love, and if you take a bite of that apple, you will go the way of Abel when this is clearly the land of Cain.

Rule #11: Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

So when I'm up here it feeds, for lack of a better word, nostalgia about my youth. Some people get that way when they see a baseball field or smell trout on the grill. I get that feeling from vertigo and the Freudian fantasy of falling to my certain death on the pavement.

Butt fucking the American dream so you can buy cheap T-shirts at Old Navy. Isn't life beautiful?

I'm Marcus Hunter. Who are you?