Smile at Strangers Quotes

“Don’t be afraid of the dark—grab darkness by the throat, kick its ass, push it down the stairs, and laugh at its haircut.”
― Susan Schorn, Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly

“I don’t want to be here. And when I’m not where I want to be, I feel like I’ve disappeared.”
― Susan Schorn, Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly

“irony here is kind of cringe-inducing, too. If I try to put the effect of that earliest workshop into less bromidic words, the best I can do is this: it was like having my world turned upside-down, and then realizing that, in fact, the world had always been upside-down, and I had just come right-side up. There was a sense of relief in knowing that all those things that had looked so wrong—the injustice of violence against women, the limits placed on us because of our gender, the fear of losing our mothers, our sisters, ourselves—were, in fact, wrong. That I was right to be angry about them. Empowerment-based self-defense training left me with a completely new way of looking at self-defense—a perspective diametrically opposed to mainstream approaches to safety.”
― Susan Schorn, Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly

“Punching something five or six times and yelling is easy. Doing it for ten seconds feels pretty definitive; you become aware that you need a lot less time than that to hurt someone. But there is something transformative about continuing to punch and yell, on and on, much longer than you could ever imagine needing to punch something or make noise, until your throat is raw and your arms feel like they belong to someone on the other side of the room.”
― Susan Schorn, Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly

“A lot of role-playing. Sleazy guy at the bus stop wants to sit too close to you: what do you do? Overly friendly nightclub patron follows you out to the parking lot: how do you react? Your boss calls you “sweetie.” What do you say? We practiced making eye contact, speaking assertively, ignoring verbal insults, not smiling or laughing in awkward situations—the most basic of self-defense skills, the ones that are so basic no one ever thinks about practicing them. It seemed silly. I felt as if I were back in grade school, being forced to watch Free to Be . . . You and Me all over again. But I quickly realized these exercises were harder than hitting things. Harder, and more gratifying.”
― Susan Schorn, Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly