Imogen, Obviously Quotes

“It's like there's this idea that you have to earn your label through suffering. And then you have to prove it with who you date, how you dress, how other people perceive you.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“It feels bigger than I want it to be. Do I really have to announce this? Can't I just feel something and live inside it while it's happening and not analyze it to death?”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“How do I know it’s not a fluke? What if I only ever fall for one girl?” “Then you’re bi.” She pats my arm. “What if I’m talking myself into it?” “Not a thing—” “Okay, but what if the girl I like is kind of—I don’t know—boyish?” “Is she a boy?” Edith asks. “No.” “Sounds pretty bi.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Every breath she breathes feels like a love letter.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“It's a shift from a spiraling I hope I'm doing this right to the ache of I hope.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“So which one of us is more queer?"
"Well," I pause, "I'd have to see the two of you trying to sit in chairs.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Maybe one day we’ll talk about it. Maybe I’ll find the words, and she’ll find a way to hear them. Then we’ll cry and hug and years will pass, and we’ll move past it. It’ll be just a little bump in our backstory. Or maybe for us, it ends here. Maybe Gretchen’s my backstory.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“With girls, it was more like that feeling you get when you finish a book and your brain can’t quite shake it.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“My head’s a shaken snow globe, glitter suspended in liquid.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“One's signed, one's my reading copy, and one's for emergencies”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Tessa’s eyes catch mine, and her lips tug up at the corners, just barely. And the noise in my brain falls away.
All the times I said I’m straight. All the times everyone’s said I’m straight.
There it was, underlined and written in bold. How could I miss it?
Like finding Waldo and realizing he was never really hiding.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“How weirdly does a person have to sit to count as bisexual?”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“I wouldn't call it a gut punch - more like a tiny, sharp poke beneath my rib cage. Other people's inside jokes always hit me like that, but I can never quite pin down the feeling. A variation of loneliness, maybe." -Imogen”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Our eyes meet, and in my brain, it’s like daybreak.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Queerness recognizing queerness. It’s kind of beautiful when you think about it.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Ma'am, that is between you and your algorithm.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Second of all, what’s the point of having a shed if you’re not going to use it to make out with girls?”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Queerness isn’t some distant hypothetical concept to me. It’s right there. It always has been.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Then she buries her face in the crook of my neck, and every breath she breathes feels like a love letter”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Can you explain to me why you have three identical copies of One Last Stop."
"I mean one’s signed, one’s my reading copy and one is for emergencies.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“If I were queer, wouldn’t I at least sort of know? It’s my own brain. I have open access to it. No one’s redacting parts of the story. Especially not something as fundamental as who I’m attracted to. And I know denial exists. But this isn’t denial. Denial’s a curtain with a clear truth behind it.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Am I two lemon squares and a haircut away from making out with girls at a Clairo concert?”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“If you ever had something you wanted to tell me, I could make space for that, too.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“What starts with F and ends in u-c-k? A firetruck!”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“The thing is, Gretchen's not even doing anything wrong. It's just this dynamic that's always kind of been there with us. Basically, there's a version of me who lives in Gretchen's head, and as long as I stay within a certain radius of that, we're fine. But when I veer too far off course-I start to feel kind of hazy sometimes. Maybe I'm more liquid than most people are. I always seem to take the shape of my container. Usually, it's a sort of relief, letting Gretchen remold me.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“1987: the world’s biggest pancake ever (well, at the time). My parents actually got to eat part of it!” She sits up suddenly. “You’re descended from pancake royalty?” “I mean, yeah,” I say, “but deep down I’m just a normal girl. You don’t have to treat me differently in pancake situations.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“I just wanted to say how much i loved last night… How much I liked last night… Just wanted to say last night was really fun… Hi. we made out last night and then I disappeared and then you disappeared and now I’m going home and I know you don’t want to be official girlfriends or anything, obviously, LOL, but I just want you to know I really liked it. More than liked it. Unless you disagree, in which case I liked it just enough that you should feel good about your kissing abilities, but not enough that you should feel any pressure, okay? And maybe you can respond with an emoji, or something, just to give me a clue where you stand.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“Denial’s a curtain with a clear truth behind it.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“She coaxes us in for a big group fist bump—and I get this happy jolt in my chest when our hands come together.”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously

“It's a shift from a spiraling I hope I'm doing this right to the ache of I hope”
― Becky Albertalli, Imogen, Obviously