Rachel Cohn

“Better to end this dream before it becomes a nightmare.”

“I knew she was leaving. I knew we were never going to date long-distance. I knew that we wouldn't have been able to be like this back when were were dating, so there was no use in regretting what hadn't happened. I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them. I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present... ..It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by all passersby. When I got back to my mother's apartment, I was a mixture of giddy thrill-happiness and muddle gut-confusion-- I didn't want to leave anything regarding Sofia to chance, and at the same time I was enjoying this step away from it.”

“He can act a bit loner-ish, but I think he's some serial killer waiting to happen; he's just his own best company sometimes. And he's comfortable with that. I guess there's nothing wrong with that.”

“Do you still Kill Gerbils?”

“The Secret tactic of a good hard bargainer is know when to compromise.For instance.I will demand a puppy if I am forced to move to Fiji.But I will settle for a bunny.”

“It still might be a shock. To realize you are just one story walking among millions.”

“Villains made no special guest appearances in our Once Upon A Time story games. They scared Laura and bored me, so instead we made up heroines with ghastly itchy skin but magnificent tresses of hair, and the occasional sleeping disorder. Those heroines had enough on their hands without having to worry about warding off true evil.”

“Say you're bored. Or you can't sleep. Maybe your mom is yelling at you, or the boy/ girl you like doesn't like you back in the same way, or you're too fat to even consider going to prom. Or the closet person to you since you were babies in the cradle together has killed herself. The usual stuff. Dread not. Don't be depressed. Be a junkie! You can't count on people to nurture you through the trauma that is existence. But you already knew that. Start by drawing the shades in your bedroom. Welcome the darkness. Lift the pill from your nightstand, clutch the water glass in your hand. Offer your divine thanks in advance. Be greedy-swallow the pill whole rather than spit it in half to spread the wealth for a later date. Dilution is wasteful. Savor the wholesome wholeness. Now lay down in bed. Close your eyes. Wait. Just a little longer.”

“I understand why Laura did what she did. I think I'm supposed to be mad at her, but I'm not. I admire her courage. She saw what the world had to offer and said, No thank you. She saw the lies and hypocrisy and violence and hate and meaningless of it all and she chose another path. She won't live to see her grandchildren, but also won't live to see them suffer.”

“I'm not fine. Soon, the tears will come. I can sense them building in the pit of my stomach, coating the belly of candy. They will come when I am alone in the dark, in my own bed, with no one to comfort me. I will mourn Laura then, in private. A Category 5 hurricane is building in my heart and soul, but right now it's offshore, waiting to make landfall, waiting to crush me.”

“A department store two days before Christmas Eve is like a city in a state of siege....”

“Males are the most incomprehensible species.”

“Maybe your unspeakable defects give you power too?”

“What's a slut?" I ask him."A girl who puts out too easily.""Puts out what?" I imagine Greer putting out dinner and don't understand what Iwan wouldn't like about that."Puts out, you know..." His face, already beet red from our run, turns a darker scarlet. "Sex."I wonder where Greer puts the sex out.”

“Who's Jessie?""My Yugo""You have a name for your Yugo? Please don't tell me you're one of those guys who also names his dick.""Unfortunately, I've yet to find the perfect name for mine, so it's in this netherworld of nameless identity right now.”

“Fuck me. Fuck me for always getting into situations like this. Fuck me for caring. Fuck me for not knowing the words that would've made her stay. Fuck me for not knowing what I want. Fuck me for wavering. Fuck me for not kissing her back the right way. Fuck me for getting my hopes up. Fuck me for not having more realistic hopes. Fuck me for giving her my fucking jacket. Fuck.”

“So what do you have to confess now?"I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth. "I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this.""What is 'this'?"Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.”

“I'm liking that I can throw any kind of sentence at her without worrying it's too out there.”

“Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick's t-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.”

“I mean, what if love isn't a yes-or-no question? It's not either you're in love or you're not. I mean, aren't these different levels? And maybe these things, like words and expectations and whatever, don't go on top of the love. Maybe it's like a map, and they have all their own place, and when you see it from the sky - whoa.”

“Listen to me: I never married because I was too easily bored. It's an awful, self-defeating trait to have. It's much better to be too easily interested.”

“Hellaciously Homely.”

“Well what's in your Amazonian hope chest?”

“How would I ever know when that moment was right, when expectation met anticipation and formed...connection?”

“I lost myself immediately in one of the books, only emerging when the phone rang.“Dashiell?” my father intoned. As if someone else with my voice might be answering the phone at my mother’s apartment.“Yes, Father?”“Leeza and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas.”“Thank you, Father. And to you, as well.”[awkward pause][even more awkward pause]“I hope your mother isn’t giving you any trouble.”Oh, Father, I love it when you play this game.“She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I’ll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball.”“It’s Christmas, Dashiell. Can’t you give that attitude a rest?”“Merry Christmas, Dad. And thanks for the presents.”“What presents?”“I’m sorry—those were all from Mom, weren’t they?”“Dashiell …”“I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on ”

“I’m looking for Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” I declared.He did not respond.“It’s a book,” I said. “Not a person.”Nope. Nothing.“At the very least, can you tell me the author?”He looked at his computer, as if it had some way to speak to me without any typing on his part.“Are you wearing headphones that I can’t see?” I asked.He scratched at the inside of his elbow.“Do you know me?” I persisted. “Did I grind you to a pulp in kindergarten, and are you now getting sadistic pleasure from this petty revenge?Stephen Little, is that you? Is it? I was much younger then, and foolish to have nearly drowned you in that water fountain. In my defense, yourprior destruction of my book report was a completely unwarranted act of aggression.”Finally, a response. The information desk clerk shook his shaggy head.“No?” I said.“I am not allowed to disclose the location of Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” he explained. “Not to you. Not to anyone. And while I am not StephenLittle, you should be ashamed of what you did to him. Ashamed.”

“I know it’s technically goodwill to all men, but in my mind, I drop the men because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist.Goodwill shouldn’t be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I’d evenextend the goodwill not just to living creatures but to the dearly departed, and if we include them, we might as well include the undead, thosesupposedly mythic beings like vampires, and if they’re in, then so are elves, fairies, and gnomes. Heck, since we’re already being so generous in ourbig group hug, why not also embrace those supposedly inanimate objects like dolls and stu”

“I was strictly a college-ruled man myself, having no talent for illustration and a microscopic scrawl that made wide-ruled seem roomy. The blank pages were usually the most popular”

“It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn't about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love.”

“But she's not, and I am left to wonder on my own: How does this work, the getting to know a new guy without revealing too much desperation for his undivided attention?”

“I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth." -Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist”

“The sound of the ocean breaking our silence was like chocolate syrup poured into a glass of milk, dispersing into awkward dark clumps while waiting to be stirred.”

“We're better off. But I don't know if the world's better off. I don't know if the two are the same thing.”

“So he's worth a second shot?The more apt question, my dear, is: are you?”

“My heart literally aches, that shit is not made up; it hurts for an unexpected, brief time warp of suddenly wanting and longing and believing, but then not having.”

“Friendship is love as much as any romance. And like any love, it’s difficult and treacherous and confusing. But in the moment when your knees touch, there’s nothing else you could ever want.”

“I’ve never understood why looking hot has to be equated with sex and conquest. Whatever happened to anticipation, to courtship, to true love? Can’t a person look hot and not have it mean something?”

“When in doubt, ingest carbs.”

“Because I withered under the glare of an actual invitation, I was a firm believer in preventive prevarication--in other words, lying early in order to free myself later on.”

“All I ever think about is food or sex.”

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

“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.”

“When your mom noticed me watching a Buffy rerun on the little TV on the doorman desk one slow night on the job, she admitted that watching Buffy was her shared solace with you after your dad left. She told me how you cry and cry for Buffy. You cry when Angel shows up to be Buffy's prom date even though they'd already recognized the futility of their true love and broken up. You cry when Buffy's mom is taken away by natural instead of supernatural causes. You cry when seasons six and seven really don't reflect the quality of seasons one through five except for the musical episode.”

“I turn the key and I turn the key and I turn the key and she doesn't do a damn thing.”

“A dream deferred is a dream denied.”

“I never married because I was too easily boref. It's an awful, self-defeating trait to have. It's much better to be too easily interested.”

“Maybe, I thought, it's not distance that's the problem, but how you handle it.”

“It is much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face.”

“It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that it humbles the present. Her absence was palpable, even though she was still in the room.”

“There was no word in the dictionary adequate to describe the sensation other than sensational.”