Wishful Drinking

by Carrie Fisher

I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up (and I guess this gives us a sense of extended community), but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!

I decided to ride the lightning instead of extinguishing the light of life that had once shone out of my eyes.

If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.

I remember thinking, wow, some day when I’m grown up, maybe I’ll get my own enormously big breasts. I used to watch while my mom lifted up her huge fun bags so she could wash underneath them. I eventually did get those big breasts, and now I’m sorry.

I was a clumsy-looking and intensely awkward, insecure girl. I decided then that I’d better develop something else—if I wasn’t going to be pretty, maybe I could be funny or smart—someone past caring. So far past caring that you couldn’t even see it with a telescope.

Happy is one of the many things I’m likely to be over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a lifetime. But I think if you have the expectation that you’re going to be happy throughout your life—more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time—well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.

“Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.”