The collection / 65 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1968 AD

...The important people in our lives leave imprints. They may stay or go in the physical realm, but they are always there in your heart, because they helped form your heart. There's no getting over that.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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02c. 1968 AD

The best is when we all go at once, like an army of interrelated popcorn zombies who laugh the same laughs and gasp the same gasps and aren’t so germ-phobic with each other that we won’t share a ginormous Coke with one straw. Family is useful like that.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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03c. 1968 AD

I don't see why ogling same-sex kissing should be the exclusive domain of frat boys whacking off to lesbian action, that's so sexist. Feminism should be all inclusive- it should be about sexual liberation, equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental girl right of boy2boy appreciation.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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04c. 1968 AD

Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just take a nice silly walk in Central Park with.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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05c. 1968 AD

But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave them to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest--the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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06c. 1968 AD

I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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07c. 1968 AD

Somewhere between a friend and acquaintance—a frequaintance, as it were.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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08c. 1968 AD

We always see the worst in our selves. Our most volnerable selves. We need someone to get close enough to tell us that we're wrong. Someone we trust.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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09c. 1968 AD

I mean, like most guys, you carry around this girl in your head, who is exactly who you want her to be. The person you think you will love the most. And every girl you are with gets measured against this girl in your head.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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10c. 1968 AD

Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick's t-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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11c. 1968 AD

I am bigger than the box I'm in.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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12c. 1968 AD

Why do adults think every girl who isn’t some overachieving nitwit needs to be reassured about her intelligence? Folks, my self-esteem is just fine, thanks. I may not be school smart, and I may do extremely stupid things sometimes, but I know I’m smart. And I’d give me some serious Vegas odds to kick the ass of Sarah Scholar at life-skills moral combat any day.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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13c. 1968 AD

She murmured, in that particular Nancy way of hers that grates most when my inner bitch is aching to be let loose, 'Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.'My eyes popped open to see her lemon face standing over me.'SOMEONE,' I hissed, 'HASN'T EVEN WOKEN UP YET. GOD, WHAT IS YOUR ANEURYSM? CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?

Rachel Cohn / quote

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14c. 1968 AD

These humans—they are cruel monsters. Liars. Deceitful. For the first time, I want to hurt them the way they hurt me. This is so unfair. My body feels numb, my energy spent, my mind deceived and angry.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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15c. 1968 AD

When the time is right, when these feelings of rage and unfairness once again overcome me, I will not faint. I will fight.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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16c. 1968 AD

I kind of hate Nick right now, too, but there's someone else higher on my list, someone I hate more than Saddam Hussein and any asshole named Bush combined, hate more than that fuckhead who canceled 'My So-Called Life' and left me with a too-small boxed DVD set that does not answer the questions whether Angela and Jordan Catalano did it, or if Patty and Graham got a divorce, or if there really was something to all that lesbian subtext between Rayanne and Sharon.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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17c. 1968 AD

Beneath the water, I can know her. She was fierce, uncompromising. When she loved, she loved deeply, passionately. She loved the blue-eyed water god. She owned him. His heart.But then she felt betrayal, she hated, and she was feared.Hate gave her power.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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18c. 1968 AD

Get out of bed and feed me already, person!

Rachel Cohn / quote

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19c. 1968 AD

It's not the loving that hurts this girl; it's the understanding of it for what it is, that it will never be returned in the same way, that threatens to destroy her. But to unload the words - "I love you" - on an innocent party who didn't ask for it, to reach across the dark space and touch him - it's like the world she knows could end if she dared speak these words, dared make such a move.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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20c. 1968 AD

When the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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21c. 1968 AD

Maybe your unspeakable defects give you power too?

Rachel Cohn / quote

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22c. 1968 AD

Know what the best thing your true love can give you is?” I asked him.“What?” said Dash.“True love.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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23c. 1968 AD

The humans create life, and senselessly cause death. For nothing.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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24c. 1968 AD

We're better off. But I don't know if the world's better off. I don't know if the two are the same thing.

Rachel Cohn / quote

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