Rachel Cohn > Quotes

“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.”
― Rachel Cohn, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking 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 blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I mean, I don’t know how the world broke. And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don’t you just feel we’re becoming more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces - they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“There’s no such thing as ready,” she says. “There’s only willing.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Answer all the questions that I'm too afraid to ask”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here’s a hint—ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn’t just the women. 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 their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don’t want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“somewhere between a friend and acquaintance—a frequaintance, as it were.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.

-Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist ”
― Rachel Cohn

“This must be part of Mother Nature's master plan - making these boys so irresistibly cute, in such a naughty way, that the purity of their intentions becomes irrelevant. - Lily”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Wold domination is exhausting and cliche. People ought to just focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of assholes.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“Bruises mapped my body from bumping into tables and tripping over curbs while walking with a book in my hand, my eyes focused on the pages instead of the live space around me.”
― Rachel Cohn, You Know Where to Find Me

“[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, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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)”
― Rachel Cohn

“Life is funny, baby, and that's no joke”
― Rachel Cohn, Gingerbread

“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”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Well, well, well,” Santa said once the elf had retreated. “Come and sit on my lap, little boy.”

This Santa’s beard was real, and so was his hair. He wasn’t fucking around.

“I’m not really a little boy,” I pointed out.

“Get on my lap, then, big boy.”

I walked up to him. There wasn’t much lap under his belly. And even though he tried to disguise it, as I went up there, I swear he adjusted
his crotch.

“Ho ho ho!” he chortled.

I sat gingerly on his knee, like it was a subway seat with gum on it.

“Have you been a good little boy this year?” he asked.

I didn’t feel that I was the right person to determine my own goodness or badness, but in the interest of speeding along this encounter, I said yes.

He actually wobbled with joy.

“Good! Good! Then what can I bring you this Christmas?”

I thought it was obvious.

“A message from Lily,” I said. “That’s what I want for Christmas. But I want it right now.”

“So impatient!” Santa lowered his voice and whispered in my ear. “But Santa does have a little something for you”—he shifted a little in
his seat—“right under his coat. If you want to have your present, you’ll have to rub Santa’s belly.”

“What?” I asked.

He gestured with his eyes down to his stomach. “Go ahead.”

I looked closely and saw the faint outline of an envelope beneath his red velvet coat.

“You know you want it,” he whispered.

The only way I could survive this was to think of it as the dare it was.
Fuck off, Lily. You can’t intimidate me.
I reached right under Santa’s coat. To my horror, I found he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. It was hot, sweaty, Geshy, hairy … and
his belly was this massive obstacle, blocking me from the envelope. I had to lean over to angle my arm in order to reach it, the whole time
having Santa laugh, “Oh ho ho, ho ho oh ho!” in my ear.

I heard the elf scream, “What the hell!” and various parents start to shriek. Yes, I was feeling up Santa. And now the corner of the envelope was in my hand. He tried to jiggle it away from me, but I held tight and yanked it
out, pulling some of his white belly hair with me. “OW ho ho!” he cried. I jumped o1 his lap.

“Security’s here!” the elf proclaimed.

The letter was in my hand, damp but intact.

“He touched Santa!” a young child squealed.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“The mind has an ear of its own and sometimes memory is the fiercest fucking DJ alive.”
― Rachel Cohn

“But I know the difference. Everyone else is a ghost. I exist here alone, stranded by choice. Deserted. ”
― Rachel Cohn, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“You bookish little pervert.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I mean, I think I am basically a cool girl, but I am also a pain in the ass.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“We all just took the bookstore at its word, because if you couldn't trust a bookstore, what could you trust?”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I'm told there's no going back. So I'm choosing forward.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I don’t know what boldness came over me, but the resolute heaviness of Dash’s demeanor threatened to crush my soul. My pinky finger crept over and nestled against his, for comfort. Like a magnet, his pinky finger latched onto and intertwined with mine. I like magnets a whole lot.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“The universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“You should never wish for wishful thinking.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“That's because you're interpreting it the wrong way. I didn't mean it as a wistful, overdramatic declaration. I mean that the love I felt for him was huge and real, and, while painful, it forever changed me as a person, in the same way that being your brother reflects and changes how I evolve, and vice versa. 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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“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, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“Wherever I went, I was on the wrong end of the stampede.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I'm so into you, it's not even funny. (Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List)”
― 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, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“The handwriting was a girl’s. I mean, you can tell. That enchanted cursive.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I've given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“There. I've said everything I wanted to say without actually having to use the words "please stay”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“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, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in thier 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? Maybe backpack across Europe or Asia? I'll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I've found my own way.”
― Rachel Cohn