Quotes by Koren Zailckas

My boyfriends have all been as stoical as queens guards. Theyd been patient, committed, and dispassionate, and Id had to really debase myself to extract any emotion, either grin or grimace, from them.

Id written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing ones own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. Id made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.

My demeanor isnt that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four manageable pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.

Im trying to figure out precisely which character flaw might be responsible for my latest life failure.

Theres a limit to my patience with anything that smacks of metaphysics. I squirm at the mention of mind expansion or warm healing energy. I dont like drum circles, public nudity or strangers touching my feet.

Thats the thing about social drinking: In the end, its the drinking that creates the scene, not the other way around. You grow to relish the buzz, regardless of the situation. Once youre there, really there inside that moment, with its neighbourly warmth and conversation, its hard to tell whats responsible for producing emotion. Whats responsible for the light-headed feeling? Is it the Molson, or the boy whos running his fingers through the ends of your hair? Are you chatty because youre drunk, or because youre connecting with someone on a level that you have never before experienced?

Violet remembered that slap; later her mother had called it a love tap, as if to further confuse love with pain.

Its not rocking the boat, Dad. Its called communication. Youre allowed to ask questions. Other people do it all the time. Other people dont live in fear of someone elses reactions. They dont relentlessly stress out about getting into trouble.

Im 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?

I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight...I agree.

But in college, we can wear our alcohol abuse as proudly as our university sweatshirts; the two concepts are virtually synonymous.

Its meant I will act like less of an asshole, but feel much more like one.

Even years from now, once Ive 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 its 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 its 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 shouldnt buy into the bullshit about temperance.

I do think anger is so difficult for women. Girls think it undermines their femininity its not very ladylike.

I think what I learned in research is that as Americans, were very distrustful of anger. Were not sure if we should repress it. The idea that anger is supposed to be controlled is American, and we try to keep it out of our homes.

We are taught to believe its bad to be angry, or at least its not good. Thats not the case all throughout the world. People are more open and not embarrassed about it. For instance in Paris, people believe Americans have a really unhealthy relation with anger. They think its essential to get angry.

I think, for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.