The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance Quotes

“I think crush is the perfect word to describe it, too, because it simultaneously means 'to have a brief infatuation with someone unattainable' and 'to be violently squashed.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Impossible is Nothing,” it said. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“When you wish for something over and over again and it doesn't come true, something else happens; not only do you give up, but you resent your wish and you resent wishing.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“While Catholics usually paint the Savior suffering, Mormon artists tend to depict Him as a rugged Idaho mountain man – the kind of Jesus you wouldn’t mind dating. In this particular picture he was healing a blonde child, because blondes were big in Jerusalen in 33 A.D. (131)”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“I even tried to usher her into this century by explaining that wearing rainbows didn’t automatically mean a person was gay. The Lucky Charms leprechaun was not necessarily a homosexual. The Care Bear with the rainbow on his tummy did not have a life partner. He didn’t even have genitals. (6)”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“I know it is possible to feel this way about other people," I began, pointing to my heart, "I know that there are a lot of ways to love and that each person I date will bring out a different part of me and I will love them all differently. But I always like how I liked you the best.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“No sex?" He looked at me in disbelief. "Well if you can't have ze sex, what can you do?"

For the sake of simplicity I took my left arm and lined it up just under my collarbones. "Nothing below here," I said. I took my right arm and lined it up to my knees. "Nothing above here."

"What about your armpit?" he asked. "Can your boyfriend do anything he wants to your armpit?"

I thought about it. Armpits seemed pretty harmless. "Yeah," I said optimistically. "My boyfriend can do anything he wants to my armpit."

"This is good," the Frenchman said. "He can stick his penis in and out of your armpit, and if you grow hair there it is almost like vagine."

Is it too late to change my answer? I wondered, pulling a cardigan over my bare shoulders and covering any hint of an invitation.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“You know what your problem is?" he continued.
"What?"
"You believe a buncha different things, you've lived in a buncha different places, and now, nobody's like you."
"Thanks, Vinny. No one tells you what being unique actually means: that you'll die alone.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“I think most religious people experience just as much doubt as they do faith; they just don’t admit it. (13)”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Impossible is Nothing”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“When slow songs do play, people joke that you should be able to fit "the standard works" between you and your partner. The standard works is a Mormon term referring to all of the religious books we study. So when you're slow dancing, the Old Testament, New Testament, The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price should be able to fit in the space between you and your dance partner -- or you're dancing too close.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“The thing with restaurant talk is you’re not supposed to take it to heart.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“And it’s why I love saying yes. When you say yes you can start and end the day in two totally different places. Yes takes that space between unlimited possibilities and reality, and stretches it out so that anything can happen.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“By the age of six, I was already asking my mother, “When do we graduate from church?” At this point I had entered school and understood that while school was “not fun,” it was necessary. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Some day, many years away, I would be done with school, and the word for that was graduate. To my dismay I was told that the word to describe being done with church was death.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“When you grow up learning that God loves his children, that he watches out for each and every one of us, and that we all were put here with a purpose, it makes sense, but only from the comfort of your suburban home.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“As I watched this—the senator, the blonde, Lenny, and Al—I was filled with a terrible feeling. Not just concerning me, but for the entire state of the world. If the celebrities, politicians, and drug dealers are hanging out together, I thought, then the rest of us, well, the rest of us are properly screwed. We’re being fingered in public and we’re smiling like it’s a normal, everyday thing.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Wow, you look fantastic!” She stopped me in the hallway. “Did you get gastric bypass surgery?” “No, I lost weight naturally.” “Really? I only ask because of your skin.” She pointed to the excess skin under my arm. “Doesn’t skin retract if you lose weight naturally?” I thought of a million comebacks later that night, the “wit of the staircase” as the French call it. Like, Doesn’t it strike you as odd that your best feature is pointing out the worst in others? Or, Amber, go fuck yourself. But in the moment all I could think to say was, “It depends on how fast you lose it.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Oh, Elna, how can you be with someone who loves you in spite of the very best things about you?”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“My dad says he has doubts all the time, but he doesn't allow them to question that moment when he was nineteen.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

“How can you be with someone who loves you in spite of the very best things about you?”
― Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir