Black Swans: Stories

by Eve Babitz

It’s only temporary: you either die, or get better. —Something we used to say about life in general, feeling sophisticated and amusing in bars, back in the days when we thought how you behaved was the fault of other people.

the only reason anything was off-white at the Château was because it had once been just plain white.

‘Everything will work out, but badly.’

But the trouble with life is, just when you think you’re having a happy ending, things are changing, because there are no endings except death.

wallowing in self-pity with only a touch of stylish irony was the only idea.

I’ve always wanted to be an artist and paint, nobody who sees my art says anything but “You should write.”

It’s amazing that the people you really love in your life are the ones who connect you with other people you really love.

Before I got sober, I never really looked at anyone’s eyes, but I find myself looking at people’s eyes a lot more, just for the eye contact, which to me is such a rush, it’s like other people say they feel from gambling.

For a lot of people, real life is plan A, and plan B is for in case real life isn’t working out. Sometimes it’s good to have a plan B, like if you are too desperately determined to have someone go to a party with you and you think all will be lost if they don’t, it’s best to have a plan B so you can either go by yourself or with someone else.

When I first got sober, I was filled with enthusiasm over no longer waking up with hangovers, insulting people, or feeling horrible, and I went around browbeating all my friends, insisting they see the light too, but after a few years, I realized that maybe I wasn’t the inspiration I felt people ought to notice I’d become.

The trick, I suppose, is to keep the wolves from the door so if you want to hang out on the boardwalk and feed the pigeons, you won’t trip on your way down.

You could suffer fools a lot more gladly when you were one yourself.

Some women can cry and have headaches and be sick to their stomachs and just generally be rolling in symptoms and feelings, but I like laughing and talking and staying up for fun, not staying up because I’m so miserable I can’t sleep.

decided the thing to do was to be a black swan myself. Stick to my own kind—freakish, beautiful outsiders. Become art, not decoration—

In those days, we didn’t have the word “competitive,” but I knew that men took these things so seriously, it was almost one of those things you couldn’t say to them. With women, if you get rejected, you think, “Well, that’s life for you,” but if you’re a man, it’s a much more serious thing because succeeding is your life.

“You know you’re doing the right thing if you don’t have to tap-dance.”

mostly in the black swan category—who ignored convention and things society expected women to be, but didn’t fuck your boyfriend, no matter what.

And even gorgeous starlets never slept with their friends’ lovers, unless, of course, they wanted no friends, just him.

For in those days, I thought living happily ever after might be my destiny.