Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.

by Eve Babitz

Having something that both kills pain and is illegal is too tempting when you’ve suddenly got everything but the prince, especially if you’re an American. If they made it legal and you could just buy it, perhaps women would discover that heroin isn’t what they need either.

“I wonder,” I said to my mother, “if I’ll ever get married.” “Well, if you do,” she said, “marry someone you don’t mind.”

“You know that when you have dinner with a girlfriend, you’re going to come home a whole human being”).

Being places alone makes you think.

Nothing can keep me sober when everything is flapping around for dear life.

He makes your faults sound like the inevitable by-products of how brilliant you are. And for the very first time in my life, I began to deep-down know that even though I was not as thin as George Harrison, it was going to be all right. In fact, it might even be funny.