“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 Crawford's wire hangers look like pool noodles.”
Parenting
“Our culture's obsession with vintage objects has rendered us unable to separate history from nostalgia. People want heart. They want a chaser of emotion with their aesthetics.”
HistoryAll Quotes by Sloane Crosley
“Alaska is what happens when Willy Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope, buy a place together upstate, renounce their sweet teeth, and turn into health fanatics.”
Health“My personality, when tasked with creating meals, goes something like this: Is there a way we can make this more difficult? Because let's do that. I don't mean to complicate things. It's just - why buy pre-packaged potato salad when you can spend your morning boiling potatoes and flipping out because there's no dill in the house?”
Morning“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.”
Education“Air travel is the safest form of travel aside from walking even then, the chances of being hit by a public bus at 30,000 feet are remarkably slim. I also have no problem with confined spaces. Or heights. What I am afraid of is speed.”
Travel“I'm a summer baby, so I usually have my birthday as a good summer memory.”
Birthday“If I go into a sandwich shop or anywhere that features 'Today's specials' on a chalkboard more than 10 feet away, I have to ask for a printed menu. I smile at people I don't know on the street and ignore those I do. When at home, I often find myself grabbing my 'back-up' glasses to search for the better-loved pair I have left on top of my dresser.”
Home“Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.”
Funny“You can't possibly fathom the ins and outs of a prepubescent beauty treatment until you've felt the strange but exhilarating tingle of a cottage-cheese-and-Pop-Rocks facial.”
Beauty“The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar square with some of Martha, I have to share it with all of Martha.”
Birthday“Like most citizens of popular and international urban centres, I don't take advantage of the cultural opportunities. Perhaps this comes from growing up in suburbia. Home is where you eat, sleep, read, watch television and ignore your parents. It is not where you go to the ballet and then attend a heated panel discussion about it afterwards.”
Home“I think a lot of humor is about distracting yourself. Pretend you're not trying to make it funny. Because for some reason the effort to be funny smells like sulphur in our culture.”
Funny“The truth is, I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's hideously bad. Truly rotten.”
Truth“I was diagnosed with a severe temporal spatial deficit, a learning disability that means I have zero spatial relations skills. It was official: I was a genius trapped in an idiot's body.”
Learning“I have a disproportionate amount of faith in the goodness of the world and that everything will actually work out okay.”
Faith“I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning, even if it's a paragraph.”
Morning“The reason that war is such a fascinating subject for writers is because it's a revealer. Put a bunch of people in an adrenaline-fuelled, life-or-death situation and their fundamental behaviours are exposed, the scrim is taken away and the motivations behind each personality come out to play.”
War“It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're 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.”
Funny“Our culture's obsession with vintage objects has rendered us unable to separate history from nostalgia. People want heart. They want a chaser of emotion with their aesthetics.”
History“The year most of my high school friends and I got our driver's permits, the coolest thing one could do was stand outside after school and twirl one's car keys like a lifeguard whistle. That jingling sound meant freedom and power.”
Car