16 Quotes by Gabrielle Hamilton

Badass is a juvenile aspiration.

I’m not afraid of the real truth. There is nothing you can tell me about yourself that is going to make me clutch my pearls.

I was purely content to sit in the car and wander around my own mind. Watching the world itself, the people in it, and my whole internal life was more than enough to keep me entertained.

You are always going to face forces that can bring you to your knees.

When you are the one throwing the party every night, emptying the ashtrays, making sure the tonic is cold, the limes fresh, the shifts covered, the meat perfectly cooked and adequately rested, the customers carefree and the employees calm and confident, it will leave its marks. Someone has to stay in the kitchen and do the bones of the thing, to make sure it stands up, and if it’s you, so be it.

My father has said a hundred times, and I have paid attention, that it’s stupid to let money be the reason you don’t do something.

No future graduate-level feminism seminar would ever come within a mile of the force of that first paycheck. The conviction was instant and forever: If I pay my own way, I go my own way.