“Smokers, like so many of us, are mavericks when they're healthy but parasites when they're not. They trash their bodies and then expect the rest of us to pick up the pieces, as well as most of the tab for the damage they've so defiantly done to themselves.”

American writer

Norah Vincent was an American writer known for her columns and essays in major newspapers and magazines. She wrote regularly for the Los Angeles Times, The Advocate, The Village Voice, and Salon.com, and her work also appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times, the New York Post, and The Washington Post. She drew wide attention in 2006 with Self-Made Man, a book based on her eighteen months living as a man. Her writing moved across politics, culture, and public life, with a reporter’s eye for experience and identity.