Cynthia Heimel Quotes

[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.

The moment you decide that you're a grownup now, and therefore must put away foolish things like staying out all night or cruising down strange highways is the moment you will lose that ineffable glow of youth. If you don't believe me, look around. Study those people who would rather go to shopping malls than dance halls, who think the height of depravity is bidding two no trump with only fifteen points. Every single one of these people has a stringy neck.

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.

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.

Prune these alleged friends ruthlessly from your life. You need all the positive reinforcement you can get. You need friends who think you're fabulous, an angel in human shape, and a breath of springtime.

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

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.

Wearing makeup is an apology for our actual faces.

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.

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

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

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

Women wearing men's clothes are chic, men wearing women's clothes make us fall on the floor laughing.

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.

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!'

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

We have no faith in ourselves. I have never met a woman who, deep down in her core, really believes she has great legs. And if she suspects that she might have great legs, then she's convinced that she has a shrill voice and no neck.

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.

Never judge someone by who he's in love with; judge him by his friends. People fall in love with the most appalling people. Take a cool, appraising glance at his pals.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I remember the day we were hanging around the band's commune and Roger came in with the press kit for a rock band (Moby Grape) any of us had ever seen. It looked psychedelic, yet it was done by ad people. I believe the word "hype" was coined on that very day.

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.

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

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

A car is just a moving, giant handbag! You never have actually to carry groceries, or dry cleaning, or anything! You can have five pairs of shoes with you at all times!

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.

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.

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.