Quotes by Sloane Crosley

The only bit I have pictured in any detail is the music (maybe The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields. Or Johnny Cashs It Aint Me, Babe). It doesnt matter if the selection is slow or fast, but couples shouldnt scramble to select it. If you have ever gone dancing or on a road trip or had a romantic bout of serenaded sex on a winter night, you should have a few to pick from. If not, you probably shouldnt be getting married.

Its remarkable the logic we build around a misapprehension.

I never asked my mother where babies came from but I remember clearly the day she volunteered the information....my mother called me to set the table for dinner. She sat me down in the kitchen, and under the classic caveat of loving each other very, very much, explained that when a man and a woman hug tightly, the man plants a seed in the woman. The seed grows into a baby. Then she sent me to the pantry to get placemats. As a direct result of this conversation, I wouldnt hug my father for two months.

People who just had sex had an annoying habit of assuming everyone around them had just had sex. Which was also, coincidentally, what people who were not having sex assumed.

Who do you have to sleep with to get laid in this town?

You should never wear anything you cant afford to lose.

The nursery rhyme ends when a spider comes along and frightens Miss Muffet straight off her tuffet. I have wondered about what kind of lesson this is for a young girl. If youre eating your curds and whey and a spider comes along, I dont think theres anything wrong with picking up a newspaper, smashing it, and going back to your breakfast.

In my lame pescetarian defense, its very hard to be a girl and say you wont eat something. Refuse one plate of bacon-wrapped pork rinds and youre anorexic. Accept them and youre on the Atkins. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and youre bulimic. Best to keep perfectly still and bring an IV of fluids with you to dinner.

Its remarkable the logic well build around a misapprehension.

People tend to be more tofu-like, able to absorb whatever environment theyre dropped into. But where does the adaptability end and your actual personality begin?

How above-the-law childrens books are. Hansel and Gretel (littering, breaking and entering), Rumpelstiltskin (forced labor), Snow White (conspiracy to commit murder), Rapunzel (break of contract).

Its funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. Theyre usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is probably that neither comparison is accurate.

I think a lot of humor is about distracting yourself. Pretend youre not trying to make it funny. Because for some reason the effort to be funny smells like sulphur in our culture.

My grandmother was a kind of Scarsdale, New York, society woman, best known in her day as the author of the 1959 book Growing Your Own Way: An Informal Guide for Teen-Agers - this despite being a person whose parenting style made Joan Crawfords wire hangers look like pool noodles.

Ah, the power of two. Theres nothing quite like it. Especially when it comes to paying utility bills, parenting, cooking elaborate meals, purchasing a grown-up bed, jumping rope and lifting heavy machinery. The world favours pairs. Who wants to waste the wood building an ark for singletons?

Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily, its usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is fairy lights, which we boringly refer to as Christmas lights.

Since graduation, I have measured time in 4-by-5-inch pieces of paper, four days on the left and three on the right. Every social engagement, interview, reading, flight, doctors appointment, birthday and dry-cleaning reminder has been handwritten between metal loops.

My mother is a special education teacher but also an artist, and my father an advertising executive. They are about as wacky as you can get without being alcoholics.

Are there moments when I see unrequited crushes or ex-boyfriends slow dancing with their dates and kind of want to stab myself in the spleen with a salad fork? Yeah, sure.

I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning, even if its a paragraph.