Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckasis a bestselling American writer and memoirist. Her debut, Smashed, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts and Syracuse University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
anyone stature tendency
My short stature may have something to do with my tendency to shout when enraged. How else is anyone going to hear me way down here?
absolute power until
What makes a narcissistic mother so scary? Her absolute power and controlling influence. A narcissistic mother is your only 'friend,' at least until you're old enough to go to school.
anger bad believe case essential good instance open people relation taught throughout unhealthy
We are taught to believe it's bad to be angry, or at least it's not good. That's 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 it's essential to get angry.
certainly found good life quit since sure uncovered
Since I've quit drinking, I'm not sure I've found the good life, but I've certainly uncovered a better one.
human teaches
If mothers are our first teachers, then having a narcissistic one teaches us that human closeness is terrifying, and the world is a heartless, inconsistent place.
anger difficult girls undermines women
I do think anger is so difficult for women. Girls think it undermines their femininity; it's not very ladylike.
deal parents point students
I really think, at this point in time, it does have to be all of us who deal with that as culture. It has to be students and parents and administrations and the government.
thinking normal emotion
I think, for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.
cute girl gone
Me? I'm just a literary girl gone wrong. Slow with the tongue. Quick with the pen. Undeniably cute. But, on the whole, ill-equipped for the privilege of living.
plato circles bottles
Without a bottle to hold, I feel incomplete, the way Plato says we are each born only half a circle, and we spend out lives seeking out our other half. A drink is my beloved. Without it, I am wanting; I feel half finished.
gun voice lines
I am aware that somewhere along the line, I've subconsciously turned down the pitch of my speech, like a silencer of a gun that softens the sound of its firing. Now, even when I yell, I don't feel like I am using my full voice.
writing feelings ambitious
I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.
yoga healing circles
There's a limit to my patience with anything that smacks of metaphysics. I squirm at the mention of "mind expansion" or "warm healing energy." I don't like drum circles, public nudity or strangers touching my feet.
cutting sandwiches pieces
My demeanor isn't 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.