Rachel Cohn Quotes

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.

I've always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

Cinderella was such a dork. She left behind her glass slipper at the ball and then went right back to her step-monster's house. It seems to me she should have worn the glass slipper always, to make herself easier to find. I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in their magnificent carriage, after a few miles she turned to him and said, "Could you drop me off down the road please? Now that I've finally escaped my life of horrific abuse, I'd like to see something of the world, you know?... I'll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I've found my own way.

When in doubt, ingest carbs.

The reward is in the risk. You can’t stay hidden inside Grandpa’s overprotective cloak forever. You’ve seemed like you needed to grow out of that for a while. Mom and Dad going away, and the red notebook, these things just helped. Now it’s up to you to

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

No--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. (Nick, page 156)

You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single....brilliant. Perhaps the most...brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.

I can be a badass DJ when I want, but I am also an insufferable music snob.

It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.

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.

I walked inside Macy’s and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated.

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.

The reward is in the risk.

The handwriting was a girl’s. I mean, you can tell. That enchanted cursive.

Wherever I went, I was on the wrong end of the stampede.

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 to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.

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

Everyone on this island wants something kept quiet. I want to roar

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

Why should I tell you?" he asked, with no small amount of petulance. "If you tell me, I will leave you alone," I said. "And if you don't tell me, I'm going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent." Now I could see the fright beneath the defiance.

I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.

One of the failures of cellular communication is that tiredness often comes across as sadness.

There’s no such thing as ready,” she says. “There’s only willing.

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.

In a field, I am the absence of field. In a crowd, I am the absence of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don't want to live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle.

I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other, whenever and however it happened.

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

Nick and I could become goodwill ambassadors for the city now that the porno shops on 42nd Street are gone. Must make mental note to contact mayor.

It's the great male fantasy-all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know-this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want princes, but boys want their princesses just as much.

With what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn't that we're supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we're the pieces." Nick says. "Maybe," Nick says, "what we're supposed to do is come together. That's how we stop the breaking.

We all just took the bookstore at its word, because if you couldn't trust a bookstore, what could you trust?

The universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.

I could become a nun even if I am a non-believer. I'll learn to fake it like Nick did with me. I will minister the gospel of compassion and kindness and please, always use a condom, from famine-stricken nations to war-torn dead zones. It's possible I might become a nun who kisses other nuns.

Therefore. Ergo. Erg. Argh. Ugh.

Wow. I feel like in this riot of people, I have been kicked in the stomach, but by the giddy police. Forget about the need for oxygen. My mouth wants to go back to the place it just left.

There's the usual suspects in there, Green Day and The Clash and The Smiths, yeah, but there's also Ella and Frank, even Dino, some Curtis Mayfield and Minor Threat and Dusty Springfield and Belle & Sebastian, and as I flip through his musical life, getting to know his tastes, I must acknowledge that not only am I not frigid, but I also may be multi-orgasmic.

Teenage boys cannot be trusted. Their intentions are not pure.

I am stronger than words and I am bigger than the box I'm in, and then I see her in the crowd and I fall apart -I am listening and I am listening because what I'm playing isn't something I'm thinking about, it's something I'm feeling all over.

The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay? "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The first single. It's effing brilliant, right?... That's what everybody wants, Nicky. They don't want a twenty-four-hour hump sesh, they don't want to be married to you for a hundred years. They just want to hold your hand.

I am bigger than the box I'm in.

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

Wold domination is exhausting and cliche. People ought to just focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of assholes.

He's not my step brother technically, so I think it's okay that I kissed him once.

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

She doesn't want the boy causing the distinction between "love" and "in love

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.

Tal told me he loved me, and told me and told me, but you don't tell someone that and then tell them they're not experienced enough in bed and should read a book or something to learn, or they should try wearing deep-red lipstick and tight skirts to look hot like their best friend once in a while. If Tal hadn't lied to me when he said he loved me, I might not be without a future right now, a sucker who was so chickenshit she allowed herself to believe a false dream from a false god. I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him.

Usually my characters, though young, tend to be street-wise.

We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It's the concert rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it's racing towards.