Rachel Cohn Quotes & Sayings

The scene is very Sopranos meets Rent. — Rachel Cohn

I feel like you may be a special and kind person. And I would like to make it my business to know special and kind people. Especially if they are boys my age. — Rachel Cohn

The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.
-Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist — Rachel Cohn

Get out of bed and feed me already, person! — Rachel Cohn

And escape?" "Escape, sure. But it wasn't so much about getting away, as going to. You can go anywhere in a book. Books — Rachel Cohn

Because I withered under the glare of an actual invitation, I was a firm believer in preventive prevarication
in other words, lying early in order to free myself later on. — Rachel Cohn

Hope I never love someone so much that they could hurt me the way Langston was hurt, so wounded all he could do was cry and mope around the house and ask me to make him peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off, then play Boggle with him, which of course I always did, because I usually do whatever Langston wants me to do. — Rachel Cohn

There's no such thing as a soulmate ... and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul. — Rachel Cohn

The girl is dressed in a flannel shirt, and I can't tell whether that's because she's trying to bring back the only fashion style of the past fifty years that hasn't been brought back or whether it's because the shirt is as damn comfortable as it looks. — Rachel Cohn

I wanted to live inside it, not write in it. — Rachel Cohn

It was Chaos on Glitter Ice. A massacre of librarians. — Rachel Cohn

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

This is why I should consider breaking my straight-edge vow. Beer most certainly would help this situation. It probably couldn't make it any worse. Basic — Rachel Cohn

The whole thing was silly," I said. "Please tell her there's no need to apologize. We set ourselves up for this. I was never going to be the guy in her head. And she was never going to be the girl in mine. And that's okay. Seriously. — Rachel Cohn

You don't feel like a stranger to me. I wanted to ask her, What does a stranger feel like? Not to be snarky or sarcastic. Because I really wanted to know if there was a difference, if there was a way to become truly knowable, if there wasn't always something keeping you a stranger, even to the people you weren't strange to at all. I — Rachel Cohn

Father says we are all Defects, in our way. Humans and clones. He says the word is really just a scare tactic to incite disobedient beings into subservience. He says that's all it really is - just a word. — Rachel Cohn

[S]he leans into this guy and rocks her head like I'm making this music for her, when if I could, I would take it all away and give her as much silence as she's given me pain. — Rachel Cohn

Sweat, malice, and hunger pour from me. This is release, or maybe it's just a plea for release. — Rachel Cohn

People who want things to be perfect are always impossible to please. But — Rachel Cohn

There's no such thing as ready," she says. "There's only willing. — Rachel Cohn

It's a total lie to say there's only one person you're going to be with for the rest of your life. If you're lucky - and if you try really hard - there will always be more than one. — Rachel Cohn

Snarl must love Christmas as much as me, I decided. — Rachel Cohn

I've always been sort of a closet sci-fi geek. — Rachel Cohn

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

and everything about me goes from crying out to just plain crying — Rachel Cohn

Fuck me. Fuck me for always getting into situations like this. Fuck me for caring. Fuck me for not knowing the words that would've made her stay. Fuck me for not knowing what I want. Fuck me for wavering. Fuck me for not kissing her back the right way. Fuck me for getting my hopes up. Fuck me for not having more realistic hopes. Fuck me for giving her my fucking jacket. Fuck. — Rachel Cohn

But, you see, that's the luxury of being a lout - you get to be selective about when you care and when you don't. The rest of us get stuck when your care goes shallow. — Rachel Cohn

But we had never gone out of our way to reveal ourselves, either. Instead, we'd let the facts speak for themselves. — Rachel Cohn

I want to believe that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, there is reason to hope. — Rachel Cohn

What an idiot Santa is for flying around alone. Because who would want to travel the world without another person's heartbeat beside him? — Rachel Cohn

I felt especially grateful now having the red Moleskine to confide in. Just knowing a Snarl was on the other side to read it - to possibly care - inspired my pen to move quickly in answer to his question. — Rachel Cohn

I want to be the girl Zhara once was.
Hellbeast
Maybe I am, already.
I go to Astrid's drawer. I take: her knife.
In the siding of the drawer, I notice her scrawl carved into the wood. She wrote:
To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. - Isaiah 42:7
Amen, sister.
Someone should pay for their sins. — Rachel Cohn

I half expected to find Sherlock Holmes thumb wrestling with Jane Austen in the corner. — Rachel Cohn

Boy needs to get a good night's sleep. Otherwise, he'll be lucky to get accepted at SUNY-So Far Upstate You Might As Well Be In Canada, eh? — Rachel Cohn

Unfortunately, now that Langston has a boyfriend again, he has forgotten all about me. — Rachel Cohn

I may have a potty mouth, but I do not get caught in illicit sexual encounters in Marriotts, for fuck's sake. I guess I could be open to a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons, but a Marriott, no fucking way! Yet here I am. And there's nowhere else I'd rather be. What spell has this boy cast on me? I — Rachel Cohn

I know there was no God waiting for her, because no God could have let her find Him this soon. — Rachel Cohn

It's a paradox, isn't it? The people you know the most, the people you love the most-you're also going to feel the parts of them you don't know the most — Rachel Cohn

All the librarians turned their heads to me in a collective shush. "I'm afraid you have to survive library school, put up with the general public on a daily basis, and endure several years of budget cuts in order to deserve these drinks," Chris told me kindly. "But someday, Dash, all this will be yours! We know how to spot 'em, and you're a young, temporarily one-eyed librarian in the rough! — Rachel Cohn

There are certain things a girl just knows, like that a fourth minute on a punk song is a bad, bad idea, — Rachel Cohn

The sound of the ocean breaking our silence was like chocolate syrup poured into a glass of milk, dispersing into awkward dark clumps while waiting to be stirred. — Rachel Cohn

It gives me some satisfaction to know that my departure will become somebody else's good luck — Rachel Cohn

Say you're bored. Or you can't sleep. Maybe your mom is yelling at you, or the boy/ girl you like doesn't like you back in the same way, or you're too fat to even consider going to prom. Or the closet person to you since you were babies in the cradle together has killed herself. The usual stuff. Dread not. Don't be depressed. Be a junkie!
You can't count on people to nurture you through the trauma that is existence. But you already knew that.
Start by drawing the shades in your bedroom. Welcome the darkness. Lift the pill from your nightstand, clutch the water glass in your hand. Offer your divine thanks in advance. Be greedy-swallow the pill whole rather than spit it in half to spread the wealth for a later date. Dilution is wasteful. Savor the wholesome wholeness.
Now lay down in bed. Close your eyes.
Wait.
Just a little longer. — Rachel Cohn

I love the way you look when reading a book - content and dreamy, off in another world. — Rachel Cohn

We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. — Rachel Cohn

Many years ago, he owned a neighborhood family grocery store on Avenue A in the East Village. — Rachel Cohn

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

If I'm just The Guy With Norah, that's cool. Right now, that's all I want to be. All the other things I am - they're too complicated. I can feel them lying in wait, planning their return. — Rachel Cohn

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

I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep. — Rachel Cohn

I wanted so badly to believe, but the fear felt as great and overwhelming as the desire. — Rachel Cohn

We will go Awful and die together. But we will do it as free Betas. Not as puppets of the humans. — Rachel Cohn

It was a red Moleskine - made of neither mole nor skin, but nonetheless the preferred journal of my associates who felt the need to journal in non-electronic form. — Rachel Cohn

You bookish little pervert. — Rachel Cohn

Therefore. Ergo. Erg. Argh. Ugh. — Rachel Cohn

You dueled?" Lily asked
"Yes. And if we do it again, it will be-"
"DON'T SAY IT!" Thibaud screamed.
"-a dual duel," I completed, with satisfaction. — Rachel Cohn

And I honestly like her about twenty times more now than I did when we were dating. But love needs to have a future. — Rachel Cohn

Answer all the questions that I'm too afraid to ask — Rachel Cohn

I'm thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he's dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren't about me. — Rachel Cohn

Friendship is love as much as any romance. And like any love, it's difficult and treacherous and confusing. But in the moment when your knees touch, there's nothing else you could ever want. — Rachel Cohn

Once upon a time, Sleeping Beauty decided to take a nap from which she would never wake up. — Rachel Cohn

When I was a teenager, the number one book I was most obsessed with was 'Gone with the Wind.' — Rachel Cohn

I want to believe there is a somebody out there for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody. — Rachel Cohn

The important people in your 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. — Rachel Cohn

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

Dash is getting very frisky in here with me, Mark." What I wanted to say was I wish Dash was getting frisky in here with me.
Dash raised an eyebrow at me again.
"No he's not," Mark said.
"How do you know?"
"Because if he was, you wouldn't be calling me to rescue you right now, Googly Eyes. — Rachel Cohn

I haven't been able to reach her. And if I can't reach her, there's no way to keep her from being lost. — Rachel Cohn

I go from chords to cords, amped to amps. — Rachel Cohn

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

Goodwill to Spazzy up in gerbil heaven. Sorry sorry sorry. I stopped eating meat the day of the massacre, as penance for Spazzy. I've been a vegetarian since age six, all for the love of a gerbil. — Rachel Cohn

I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to be alone with me that much. — Rachel Cohn

We hadn't vowed to write every day, and we hadn't written every day. We hadn't sworn to be true to each other, because there hadn't been much to be true to. — Rachel Cohn

Yeah. I know, I'm so bridge-and-tunnel - for as long as I've been able to catch the train, I've been sneaking into the city to go to Midtown. Hang out with the bankers, merge some mergers and acquire some acquisitions. The whole thing just reeked of sex and rock 'n' roll to me. Can't you feel it in the air? Close your eyes. Feel it? I — Rachel Cohn

Do you still Kill Gerbils? — Rachel Cohn

You need a boyfriend. Well sure, who doesn't need a boyfriend? But ealistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. I go to an all- girls school, and meaning no disrespect to my sapphic sisters, but I have no interest in nding a romantic companion there. The rare boy creatures I do meet who aren't either related to me or who aren't gay are usually too at ached to their Xboxes to notice me, or their idea of how a teenage girl should look and act comes directly from the pages of Maxim magazine or from the tarty look of a video game character. — Rachel Cohn

The way you're singing in your sleep The way you look before you leap The strange illusions that you keep You don't know But I'm noticing Fuck — Rachel Cohn

Well sure, who doesn't need a boyfriend? but realistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. — Rachel Cohn

It's that the silence hanging between us, the awkward and painful glance we share, acknowledges that I'm sitting in his seat. I start to stand up, but Ely shakes his head and gestures for me to stay seated. "It's cool," he whispers. I watch him stride away to the elevator. — Rachel Cohn

I know we're all following the same yellow brick road, looking for that ultimate band, that ultimate night to be remember. — Rachel Cohn

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

Librarians were like Mary Poppins to me. They always knew how to match a book to my mood, or to whatever I was going through at the time. I could always find peace in books. — Rachel Cohn

When is the night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply when you realize that you have to? — Rachel Cohn

If I don't shut down my brain soon, my imagination will take off so far about what could be with this guy, that nothing will ever just be.-- Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist — Rachel Cohn

She smells like marijuana smoke. It's not a bad smell. Just a sad one. — Rachel Cohn

Ash has a huge customized Barbie collection. Aside from Horror Movie Barbie (head lopped halfway off, torn and bloody clothes), Commando Barbie (camouflage bandana, pistol-whipping Ken with toy guns stolen from Josh), there is my personal favorite, Fat Barbie (dressed in a muumuu, sporting extra body girth and a double chin, thanks to the discreet placement of Silly Putty), I think Fat Barbie is genius but Nancy flipped out when she saw her. Our mother, whose statuesque blond Minnesouda beauty makes her look like a Barbie, is a size four on her bloated days. — Rachel Cohn

Well what's in your Amazonian hope chest? — Rachel Cohn

Without Laura here, food is the only thing I love that loves me back. — Rachel Cohn

But she's not, and I am left to wonder on my own: How does this work, the getting to know a new guy without revealing too much desperation for his undivided attention? — Rachel Cohn

There. I've said everything I wanted to say without actually having to use the words please stay — Rachel Cohn

I know in my heart that I can live without him and I know in my heart that I don't want to-that's a good place to start, right? — Rachel Cohn

There is no such thing as a soulmate ... and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.
Ely in Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List Rachel Cohn and David Levithan — Rachel Cohn

What's a slut?" I ask him.
"A girl who puts out too easily."
"Puts out what?" I imagine Greer putting out dinner and don't understand what Iwan wouldn't like about that.
"Puts out, you know ... " His face, already beet red from our run, turns a darker scarlet. "Sex."
I wonder where Greer puts the sex out. — Rachel Cohn

Danger is a state of mind." Farzad informs me. "Conquer it, and you ride heaven. — Rachel Cohn

Dumped doesn't even begin to describe it. If you're going to use a trash metaphor, incinerated is more like it. — Rachel Cohn

This is the funny thing about New York - there are so many things to do at all times of the day, but there are still moments when you have no idea which of them to do, and feel extra silly because you know there has to be something out there for you to do; your mind just hasn't found it yet. — Rachel Cohn

There are just lots of possibilities in the world ... I need to keep my mind open for what could happen and not decide that the world is hopeless if what I want to happen doesn't happen. Because something else great might happen in between. — Rachel Cohn

I've given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator. — Rachel Cohn

The only use she has for the word fun is to make the word funeral. — Rachel Cohn

Because I don't want to," I said. "Not because of the way she is now - I know that's not what she's like. There was no way it was going to be as easy as the notebook. I get that now. — Rachel Cohn

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