Justin Halpern

“Self-administering oral sex is not my cup of tea, but you have to hand it to him for his ruthless determination to enjoy himself.”

“My parents had irrational fears of Mexico and assumed that once you crossed the border, drug runners made you swallow a heroin balloon and then within the hour you were in a bathtub full of ice and they were harvesting your kidneys.”

“On Furnishing One’s Home“Pick your furniture like you pick a wife; it should make you feel comfortable and look nice, but not so nice that if someone walks past it they want to steal it.”

“Out of your league?! What fucking league are you talking about?! You are a man, she is a fucking woman! That is all that matters, goddamn it!”

“On Friendship“You got good friends. I like them. I don’t think they would fuck your girlfriend, if you had one.”

“On Accidentally Eating Dog Treats“Snausages? I’ve been eating dog treats? Why the fuck would you put them on the counter where the rest of the food is? Fuck it, they’re delicious. I will not be shamed by this.”

“On Sharing“I’m sorry, but if your brother doesn’t want you to play with his shit, then you can’t play with it. It’s his shit. If he wants to be an asshole and not share, then that’s his right. You always have the right to be an asshole—you just shouldn’t use that right very often.”

“One day I was on a walk with him and my dog, Angus, who was sniffing around in a bush outside a neighbor’s house. My dad turned to me and said, “Look at the dog’s asshole.”“What? Why?”“You can tell by the dilation of his asshole that he’s going to shit soon. See. There it goes.”It was at that moment, as my dog emptied his bowels in my neighbor’s yard and my dad stood there proudly watching his prediction come true, that I realized how wise, even prophetic, he really is.”

“Advice is bullshit. It's just one asshole's opinion.”

“You stand in front of an electric fence and whip your dick out to take a piss on it, it's pretty clear you're about to make a mistake. Other than that, you pretty much have no way of knowing.”

“I hadn’t gone to one dance in my entire high schoolcareer. I was six foot tall and a hundred and twentypounds. When I danced, I looked like a praying mantison fire.”

“I can't help but think about things critically. Sometimes it can be a curse. What I wouldn't give every once in a while to be a blithering idiot skipping through life with shit in my pants like it's a goddamned party.”

“I don't need more friends. You got friends and all they do is ask you to help them move. Fuck that. I'm old. I'm through moving this shit.”

“I just want silence... Jesus, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means right now, I like silence more.”

“No, you can't go getting mad at people because they're shitty. Life will get mad at them, don't worry..”

“My instructor was a skinny guy in his midtwenties who had a shaved head that was always peeling from sunburns and who could only have smelled more like marijuana if he'd been made of it. The training vehicle was a mid- '80s tan Nissan that had working breaks on the passenger side; He often got his jollies slamming them on for no reason and then between wheezing laughs saying 'You were all like 'I'm in control of the car' and then I hit the brakes and shit and you were all like 'whaaaat?”

“Eventually my dad got home from work and set his briefcase down.'So. How was practice?' he asked'It was good. Why? Did you hear it wasn't?' I said, trying to keep my cool.'Son, no offense, but you play Little League. It's not the Yankees. I don't get daily reports about who's hitting the shit out of the ball”

“If you work hard and study hard. And you fuck up. That's okay. If you fuck up and you fuck up, then you're a fuckup”

“In the fall of 1998, I began my freshman year at San Diego State University, which my dad commonly referred to as 'Harvard, without all the smart people.”

“We aint a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that.”

“Eventually, though, I came to the conclusion that I was the male equivalent of a Toyota Camry. You know: No one ever says, "I have to have a Toyota Camry." But most people who spend some time in a Camry start to like it. "It's pretty reliable," they think. "It doesn't have a lot of problems, and it's not bad to look at. You know what? I'd probably prefer a nicer car. But I can live with a Camry.”

“What Im trying to say is that what makes you up, its always been around, and it always will be around. So really the only thing you should worry about is the part you're at right now. Where you got a body and a head and all that bullshit. Just worry about living, dying is the easy part.”

“When I die, I die. I could give a shit, ’cause it ain’t my problem. I’d just rather not shit my pants on the way there,”

“Life is fucking long, especially if you're stupid.”

“On Telemarketer Phone Calls“Hello?…Fuck you.”

“... human beings fear the unknown. So, whatever's freaking you out, grab it by the balls and say hello.”

“Nobody likes practice, but whats worse: practicing or sucking at something?...Oh give me a fucking break, practicing is NOT worse than sucking.”

“On My Interest in Smoking Cigars “You’re not a cigar guy…. Well, the first reason that jumps out at me is that you hold it like you’re jerking off a mouse.”

“Joey looked confused and horrified, like a stripper bursting out of a cake only to realize she’s been accidentally delivered to a baby shower.”

“On Proper Etiquette for Borrowing His Car “You borrowed the car, and now it smells like shit. I don’t care if you smell like shit, that’s your business. But when you shit up my car, then that’s my business. Take it somewhere and un-shit that smell.”

“On My First Driving Lesson “First things first: A car has five gears. What is that smell?…Okay, first thing before that first thing: Farting in a car that’s not moving makes you an asshole.”

“On My Last-Place Finish in the 50-Yard Dash During Little League Tryouts “It kinda looked like you were being attacked by a bunch of bees or something. Then when I saw the fat kid with the watch who was timing you start laughing…. Well, I’ll just say it’s never a good sign when a fat kid laughs at you.”

“On My Eighth-Grade Graduation Ceremony “They’re celebrating you graduating from eighth grade? We just went to your sixth-grade graduation two goddamned years ago! Jesus Christ, why don’t they just throw a fucking party every time you properly wipe your ass?”

“On Showering with Regularity “You’re ten years old now, you have to take a shower every day…. I don’t give a shit if you hate it. People hate smelly fuckers. I will not have a smelly fucker for a son.”

“Your friends’ parents drive like assholes. Tell them it’s an elementary school parking lot, not downtown fucking Manhattan.”

“You are four years old. You have to shit in the toilet. This is not one of those negotiations where we’ll go back and forth and find a middle ground. This ends with you shitting in a toilet.”

“You say you’re sick, huh? Well, it looks like you’ve come down with a case of bullshit.”

“If it's not bourbon or sweatpants, it's going in the garbage.... No, don't get creative. Now is not a creative time. Now is a bourbon and sweatpants time.”

“On Being Afraid to Use the Elementary School Bathrooms to Defecate “Son, you're complaining to the wrong man. I can shit anywhere, at any time. It's one of my finer qualities. Some might say my finest.”

“My mind was quickly consumed with thoughts of my girlfriend and all the good times we had had, like one of those cheesy montages ni eighties movies, when the angsty protagonist envisions himself and his ex holding hands on the beach, feeding a small puppy, getting into some kind of zany wrestling match with whipped cream. I interrupted my cliché memories by saying aloud: "Ugh, I'm feeling pretty low about this whole thing.""You just gotta try to put it out of your head," he said, folding the paper halfway down to look at me."I know, it's just hard. I mean, I still have stuff at her place. What am I going to do about that? I still have a TV...," I said."Fuck the TV. Leave the TV. Cut your ties.""It's a fifteen-hundred-dollar TV," I insisted."Go get that fucking TV.”

“On Asking to Have the Candy Passed to Me During Schindler’s List “What do you want — the candy? They’re throwing people in the fucking gas chamber, and you want a Skittles?”

“Oh spare me, being stuck in your bedroom is not like prison. You don't have to worry about being gang-raped in your bedroom.”

“When it's asshole-tightening time, that's when you see what people are made of. Or at least what their asshole is made of.”

“You're going to run into jerk-offs, but remember: It's not the size of the asshole you worry about, it's how much shit comes out of it.”

“On my seventh birthday party:No, you can't have a bouncy house at your birthday party...What do you mean, why? Have you ever thought to yourself, where would I put a god-damned bouncy house in our backyard?...Yeah, that's right, that's the kind of shit I think about , that you just think magically appears.”

“Your penis betrayed you, son. Made you think stupid. It won't be the last time that happens.”

“There seem to be a lot of gay people there...Oh please, as if that's what I meant by that. Trust me, none of them would ever want to fuck you anyway. They're gay, not blind.”

“You worry too much. Eat some bacon...what? No, I got no idea if it'll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon.”

“It's never the right time to have kids, but it's always the right time for screwing. God's not a dumb shit. He knows how it works.”

“The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain't like he knows the cure for cancer and just ain't spitting it out.”