Cynthia Heimel Quotes

Reading is an escape, an education, a delving into the brain of another human being on such an intimate level that every nuance of thought, every snapping of synapse, every slippery desire of the author is laid open before you like, well, a book.

There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth.

Dogs act exactly the way we would act if we had no shame.

One does not have to sleep with, or even touch, someone who has paid for your meal. All those obligations are hereby rendered null and void, and any man who doesn't think so needs a quick jab in the kidney.

Infidelity is such a pretty word, so light and delicate.

Whereas the act itself is dark and thick with guilt, betrayal, confusion, pain, and (okay) sometimes enormous pleasure.

Your whole being is involved in taking care of someone else, worrying about what they think of you, how they treat you, how you can make them treat you better. Right now everyone in the world seems to think that they are codependent and that they come from dysfunctional families. They call it codependency. I call it the human condition.

Show me a woman who is prouder of her clean kitchen than of her collection of lingerie and I'll show you a woman with enlarged pores.

A person who uses party as a verb is a person who will walk into a shop and walk out wearing a rubber jumpsuit.

Friends are the twenty-first-century version of extended families.

we know that our world is corrupt and diseased but we're tired of being cynical and feeling helpless. What the hell, tilt at a windmill.

The only women who don't believe that sexual harassment is a real problem in this country are women who have never been in the workplace.

You love somebody, and then you don't love them anymore.

But if you really love somebody, you always love them, don't you? Isn't there always some small part of you that reads their horoscope in the paper everyday?

In New York we have streets exploding and innocent Buddhist girls being stabbed in the neck and cabdrivers refusing to help her. If we happen into a nightclub by mistake, when we leave the doorman will be lying in the street surrounded by police.

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself.

This is New York, a combat zone, and everyone has to have an angle or they're not allowed over the bridges or through the tunnels. Let them have their angles, it's what they live for. You've got better things to worry about, like making sure the people that actually matter don't try any funny stuff.

Wearing makeup is an apology for our actual faces.

With dogs, you don't need gurus. Dogs are forever in the moment. They are always a tidal wave of feelings, and every feeling is some variant of love.

The media know exactly what they're doing, focusing our attention on Arsenio's hairdo. We need to keep our brains brimming with rubbish. If we didn't, we might think about things.

In Manhattan, marriage is a trend. Couples kiss over their arugula and radicchio salads. They fondle each other's genitals while devouring their pasta puttanesca. By the time the tiramisu arrives, they've slid under the table.

All men are not slimy warthogs. Some men are silly giraffes, some woebegone puppies, some insecure frogs. But if one is not careful, those slimy warthogs can ruin it for all the others.

Contrary to popular cable TV-induced opinion, aerobics have nothing to do with squeezing our body into hideous shiny Spandex, grinning like a deranged orangutan, and doing cretinous steps to debauched disco music.

Women are not ladies. The term connotates females who are simultaneously put on a pedestal and patronized.

The country is suffering from musical-chairs syndrome.

We all dance around for a bit and then when we try to sit down again, somebody doesn't have a chair. We're running scared; we want ours.

When women are excited about a date, they go immediately on a diet, because all women know they are hideously obese.

Homework, root canals, and deadlines are the important things in life, and only when we have these major dramas taken care of can we presume to look at the larger questions.

Dogs and humans are symbiotic species. We need each other.

it is a shoe designer's job to be a year ahead of our collective unconscious.

The Pain-Free Shopping Method: Buy a present for you, then a present for a friend. Then another present for you. Then a present for a friend. Then two presents for you. Then a present for a friend. Then go home, get into bed, and pull up the covers.

You know what we can be like: see a guy and think he's cute one minute, the next minute our brains have us married with kids, the following minute we see him having an extramarital affair. By the time someone says, 'I'd like you to meet Cecil,' we shout, 'You're late again with the child support!'

Lots of you know me as a lone, hard-bitten columnist, prone to lurking on deserted rocky promontories while searching for my muse.

Swingers are all from the suburbs and consequently brain-addled by car pools, shopping malls, and welcome wagons.

We all have rosy memories of a simpler, happy time- a time of homemade apple pie and gingham curtains, a time when Mom understood everything and Dad could fix anything. "Let's get those traditional family values back!" we murmur to each other. Meanwhile, in a simultaneous universe, everyone I know, and every celebrity I don't know, is coming out of the closet to talk about how miserable they are because they grew up in dysfunctional families.

[On peanut M&Ms:] It is the eggness of them.

A shell, chocolate placenta, proteiny peanut baby. Life shape, birth shape, cell shape, protoplasmic-ooze shape. A shape that calls straight through civilization to our reptilian brains.

Enough about you let's hear about me.

The buying of a self-help book is the most desperate of all human acts. It means you've lost your mind completely: You've entrusted your mental health to a self-aggrandizing twit with a psychology degree and a yen for a yacht.

We must eschew anything trivial. We must embrace all that is frivolous.... Trivial things take up all your time and dull your senses, whereas frivolity is meaningful, profound, worth living and dying for.... If we devote our lives to frivolity, the world will be a far, far better place. Humanity will be better able to fulfill its primary goal, that of having a good time.

Not one woman over seventeen has any faith in her skin tone, and no woman over thirty can ever regard her upper arms with equanimity.

Pity the poor infant. Born perfect into the world from imperfect parents.

A sense of humor isn't everything. It's only 90 percent of everything.

It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that there are an awful lot of people in Manhattan. And it's getting worse.

success in L.A. is completely arbitrary. One day you're the brilliant genius of life, the next day people act like there's a bad smell when you approach. Lots of expensive, late-model cars are offered in the L.A. Times every day by people who have suddenly begun to smell bad. The stakes are just too high for human dignity.

Possessions, for the terminally frightened, bring peace of mind.

Throughout their lives, women try to pummel their bodies into some phantom ideal shape that exists only with a lot of airbrushing. ... I don't blame men for this. Men seem to go for us no matter what size and shape we are. I blame capitalism. No, really. The consumer must constantly be in a state of anxious low self-esteem so that she will constantly buy lipsticks and girdles to make her feel cuter.

Those rosy memories we all share are actually memories from our favorite TV shows. We've confused our own childhoods with episodes of "Ozzie and Harriet," "Father Knows Best," and "The Brady Bunch." In real life, Ozzie had a very visible mistress for years, Bud and Kitten on "Father Knows Best" grew up to become major druggies, and Mom on "The Brady Bunch" dated her fifteen-year-old fictional son.

A comedian is not funny unless he is taking his demons out for a walk.

Sex is not some sort of pristine, reverent ritual. You want reverent and pristine, go to church.

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.

Beware of men on airplanes. The minute a man reaches thirty thousand feet, he immediately becomes consumed by distasteful sexual fantasies which involve doing uncomfortable things in those tiny toilets. These men should not be encouraged, their fantasies are sadly low-rent and unimaginative. Affect an aloof, cool demeanor as soon as any man tries to draw you out. Unless, of course, he's the pilot.

[On her dogs:] I have four now. My friends tell me if I get any more they'll have to hold an intervention.