Never tell your friend that his girlfriend is ugly.
The best way to get a job is to not show your resume; a resume is an excuse not to hire someone.
Stealing is wrong, unless you're working as a temp for a large company in which case stealing is fine.
Hard work is more admirable than talent.
Buy your furniture in thrift stores and save your money to buy rounds of drinks for your friends.
Rich people will always tell you they're "middle class."
In many small matters loyalty is more important than integrity.
Be very suspicious of anyone who demands your loyalty.
Only honk your horn is to avoid an accident.
Honesty will get you laid more often than dishonesty and the sex will be better.
To avoid conflict with roommates do the dishes immediately after you eat.
Your vote matters.
Ambition is nothing to be ashamed of. Ambition is only bad when it makes you do bad things.
I think you're perfect, but if you ever do something wrong make amends and forgive yourself, because nobody's perfect.
Wash your hands when you use the washroom.
Use soap.
Don't be afraid to compliment someone when they do something you like, even if you don't know them.
When somebody says, "It's a matter of pride" it's usually a matter of stupidity.
Keeping your room clean is easier than you think. If you ever write a story about your girlfriend, mention how beautiful she is, she'll likely forgive everything else.
Connect.
Masturbation is a good way to relieve stress but if you masturbate too often you're spending too much time in front of the computer.
Be on the side of the worker, the tenant, and the child.
Big cars are not "cool".
Forgiveness is a virtue but it's not a reason to maintain an unhealthy relationship.
You will never beat me at cards, so stop trying.
Apologies don't come with disclaimers.
"I have a family to support" is not an excuse for being a bad person.
There is a time to give credit and a time to take credit; they're not mutually exclusive.
It's fun to talk smack but it's not worth getting somebody really angry at you.
Vote for whoever you want in the primaries.
Graciously accepting advice from your older brother is not a sign of weakness.
"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
"There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine
Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What