Kiss Her Once for Me Quotes

“Your trauma is something that happened to you; it’s not who you are.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“But beneath the desire to be cherished was the ever-present thrum of my desire to be chosen. I wanted someone who would pick me to be their family.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“We all have seasons of needing and seasons of giving.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“We are two queer women, and we're going to use this drive back to the cabin to do what queer women do."
Blood pressure: rising. "And, uh, what's that?"
"We're going to talk about our feelings"
Well. That's worse than I predicted.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“We all experience attraction differently, Some of us fall in and out of love easily. Some of us don’t experience
romantic love at all. Some of us have to fight to let ourselves be vulnerable enough to fall in
love. Some of us have to fight to let other people love us. Some of us need emotional intimacy in order to experience sexual attraction. All love and ways of
loving are love, Elle.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Miscommunications are for the straights,”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I guess maybe that's how it works in families that love each other unconditionally. You can fight without fear of losing them, and be honest without consequences or repercussions.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I'm demi," I say. Then stupidly, I clarify "-sexual. Not demiromantic or a demigirl or a demigod like Hercules." [...]
"I didn't think you were coming out to me as the mythological hero Hercules."
"Sorry, I don't always know what other people know about the asexual spectrum.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Honesty game: What is your favorite Taylor Swift album, and why is it evermore?”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I like my men like I like my life goals: unattainable.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I think marriage is just promising to love someone as long as you can for as best you can. I think relationships can be exactly what they’re supposed to be,” she says, eyes still on the snow, “even if they only last for one year, or five years, or even just for one day. The good parts of the time you spent with a person don’t go away simply because the relationship ends.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Everyone knows my sexuality is like a Rorschach test.” “What does that even mean?” “What you see when you look at me says a lot more about you than it does about me.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Snow freezes time, so the constant pressure of life is briefly suspended in a blanket of snow, and for one day, it’s like you can catch your breath.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Thank you to Taylor Swift, for writing evermore, the perfect Christmas album, and for releasing RED TV in the middle of my developmental edits, so I could listen to “Forever Winter” on repeat while rewriting the flashbacks in this book for the millionth time.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“They’re also wearing a T-shirt that says, “Merry Capitalist Consumer-Driven Corruption of a Pagan Fertility Holiday.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I used to think letting more people in would mean having more people who could ultimately disappoint me. Hurt me. Walk out of my life. But having more people means there are more arms at the ready to catch me when I fall. And I fall a lot.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“And it’s… real snow, like this… big snowstorms… they have the power to stop the world for a minute. Snow freezes time, so the constant pressure of life is briefly suspended in a blanket of snow, and for one day, it’s like you can catch your breath.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I’m not sure what I regret more: my past naivete or my present cynicism.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“The thing is, I used to dream about someone who would always choose me above everything else. There was romance in that dream, sure. I wanted someone who would see all my flaws and still lean in and tell me I’m beautiful. I wanted someone who would hold my hand in public and hold the rest of me in private, a warm body in my bed, a constant presence in my life.

I wanted someone who would see the whole mess of me—all the feelings and the perfectionism and the desire for control and the shape of my heart and the ache of my dreams, the wild, imperfect hunger of me, and the fear that keeps me from ever feeling full—and wouldn’t get freaked out or turned off. Someone who would kiss me anyway.

So yes. It was a romantic delusion. But beneath the desire to be cherished was the ever-present thrum of my desire to be chosen. I wanted someone who would pick me to be their family. I believed that somewhere out there was the person who would want to spend every holiday with me. The person who would pick me as their partner for every duet, the person who would always care about what I had to say, who would get me off the couch and into the world. The person patient enough to build trust and connection with me first; the person who would notice when I’m hurting and still never calculate the cost of loving me. Despite all my cynicism, I had to believe that person existed.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“The truth is: the world is full of selfish people who become selfish parents.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I’m not quirky. I have generalized anxiety disorder, and trust me, there is nothing cute about it.” Unless you find chronic gastrointestinal distress, anxious vomiting, and shutting down at the first sign of conflict cute. “Dude, this is Portland. We all have GAD. Get yourself a therapist already.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Ah, yes.” She nods sagely. “Everyone in Portland is originally from Ohio.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“It’s hard to explain to anyone who grew up with stability and safety and guaranteed love what it’s like to both hate your parents and desperately want their love at the same time.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I'm not okay, but I'm not sure why I'm not okay. I feel fluttery and panicked, like I have an itch inside my internal organs that I'll never be able to scratch. And why, why? I just had the best sex of my (admittedly pretty sexless) life. I got to kiss Jack without guilt. I got to wake up in her arms. The sound of her sandpaper voice against my skin. I am so glad I found you again.
How could that beautiful night lead to these ugly feelings twisting inside of me?”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Diese Leute, die immer so ein Trara um männliche Unterarme machen, die klar schön sind, haben wohl noch nie die tätowierten Unterarme einer Butch-Lesbe gesehen.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I'm not sure what I regret more: my past naivete or my present cynicism”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“And Linds, being Linds, would always yell back. I would stomp and slam doors, but Linds would say the cruelest thing in the most cutting tone. Linds would give me the silent treatment for days on end in our own house, refusing to talk to me as I ate breakfast cereal for dinner or did my own laundry. Sometimes, she just wouldn’t come home for a few nights, and I would be left to wonder if she was ever coming home at all.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“I guess maybe that’s how it works in families who love each other unconditionally: you can fight without fear of losing them and be honest without consequences or repercussions.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“You’re not my beard. Everyone knows my sexuality is like a Rorschach test.” “What does that even mean?” “What you see when you look at me says a lot more about you than it does about me.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“But then Jack is at my side, reaching out for my hand, reading my mind. “It’s going to be hard,” she says. “Whatever comes next, with my family. It’s not going to be easy. But I’m in. I’m all in.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me