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8155d6b
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It was a red Moleskine--made of neither mole nor skin, but nonetheless the preferred journal of my associates who felt the need to journal in non-electronic form.
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Rachel Cohn |
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460f0b2
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I am the ticking, I am the pulsing, I am underneath every part of this moment.
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Rachel Cohn and David Levithan Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist |
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42133f1
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I love you for answering the call of a red notebook once upon a time.
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Rachel Cohn |
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3fcdf06
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Maybe the simple diagnosis of either hetero or homo is misleading. Maybe there's just sexuality, and it's bendable and unpredictable, like a circus performer,
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Rachel Cohn |
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d4a7108
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I know there was no God waiting for her, because no God could have let her find Him this soon.
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Rachel Cohn |
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dd6b5f1
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That's a nice quote," Langston said. "Underline it and fold down the page for me, will you?" I did as instructed."
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Rachel Cohn |
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13d8f08
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I felt a sense of longing for him such as I've never experienced in my lifetime for any person, or even for any pet.
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Rachel Cohn |
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14a49b4
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the love I felt for him was huge and real, and, while painful, it forever changed me as a person,
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Rachel Cohn |
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b3bc330
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The doorman code of conduct?" I ask Gabriel. What did I do wrong this time? Or is Gabriel one of those Madonna/whore guys who can't deal with a girl who makes the first move? "No, the gentleman's code of conduct," he says. "And, I don't know, maybe needing better ambience? Like, not in a closet. Maybe dinner and a movie first?" I really don't know how to do this. When the stakes count. I am an idiot. I turn around to leave, embarrassed..
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Rachel Cohn |
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9b36020
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Don't do it for the sake of doing it, but don't wait for a fantasy, either.
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Rachel Cohn |
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db01f78
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Librarians were like Mary Poppins to me. They always knew how to match a book to my mood or to whatever I was going through at the time. I could always find peace in books." "And escape?"
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Rachel Cohn |
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29b98d7
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What I was sure of was that the bagpipes had begun to play "Fairytale of New York"--which is basically the best Christmas song ever written."
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Rachel Cohn |
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ef31dcf
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I know this is the wrong choice. But it feels like the only choice. So I make it.
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Rachel Cohn |
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ff47341
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The minute she left the apartment, I missed having her there. But as with all loves, I supposed, the consolation was in the fact that she'd be back.
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Rachel Cohn |
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6486364
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There are certain things a girl just knows, like that a fourth minute on a punk song is a bad, bad idea,
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Rachel Cohn |
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b29fe4e
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I always made it my mission to like him, because somebody has to like the people no one else likes or the world would just be hopeless. And the best way to extract holiday cheer, I've found, is to spend time with the most curmudgeonly person you know , and their grump can't help but force you into feeling good, because it gives you perspective and balance.
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Rachel Cohn |
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62c59a5
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Anyone who's lived in Manhattan all his life always feels torn whenever he leaves it. There's the satisfaction of breaking free, for a time. But that's balanced heavily by the feeling of leaving your whole life behind, and to see it from a distance.
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Rachel Cohn |
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cbd6153
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Librarians were like Mary Poppins to me. They always knew how to match a book to my mood, or to whatever I was going through at the time. I could always find peace in books.
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Rachel Cohn |
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bab3a8c
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But the older you get, the more you realize that, yes, there are all these things that link you to the past, and you're using the same words and singing the same songs that have always been there for you, but each time, things have shifted, and you have to deal with that shift. Because
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Rachel Cohn |
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c1a31dc
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What's the one thing we want when it comes to the people we love? Time. And what's the scariest thing about how love goes? Time. The thing we want the most is the thing we fear the most, I guess. Time is going to run out. But in the meantime we have... everything.
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Rachel Cohn |
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7223592
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I feel like I know her. Really know her. And part of really knowing her is also knowing that I don't necessarily know her as well as I think I do. Which is okay. We should each have our own damn souls.
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Rachel Cohn |
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54daf15
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Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you're friends is easy. Being friends is not.
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Rachel Cohn |
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45643a1
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It was Chaos on Glitter Ice. A massacre of librarians.
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Rachel Cohn |
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83fd78a
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I notice her the way you notice the differences in someone who's been away a long time. And it hasn't been a long time. It's only been long for us.
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Rachel Cohn |
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007c5ea
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I haven't been able to reach her. And if I can't reach her, there's no way to keep her from being lost.
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Rachel Cohn |
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ab3082b
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What an idiot Santa is for flying around alone. Because who would want to travel the world without another person's heartbeat beside him?
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Rachel Cohn |
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e39597b
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People who want things to be perfect are always impossible to please. But
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Rachel Cohn |
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95cec1a
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Lily was mittens and hot chocolate and snow angels that lifted from the ground and danced in the air. She said she loved winter, and I wondered if there was any season she didn't love. I worked hard to accept her enthusiasm as genuine. My mental furnace was built for immolation, not warmth. I didn't understand how she could be so happy. But such was the love I had fallen into that I decided not to question it, and to live within it.
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Rachel Cohn |
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985cc8a
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When I was old enough to read and write, my parents gave me an eraser board that I kept in my room at all times. The idea was that when frustrated, I, Lily, should write down words on the board to express my feelings instead of letting she-devil Shrilly express them through shrieking. It was supposed to be a therapeutic tool.
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Rachel Cohn |
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7be4b7b
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I don't mean this to sound hopeless. Because in the same way that a kid can realize what "c-a-t" means, I think we can find the truths that live behind our words. I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learned the words. It must have been astoni..
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Rachel Cohn |
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9748c95
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I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat, and that "dog..
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Rachel Cohn |
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abf7e6f
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I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soulmate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.
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Rachel Cohn |
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54c5869
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I started to write: Langston deserves to be sick. But I erased that and wrote, Okay. I'll make him some.
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Rachel Cohn |
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abd6b4c
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I know in my heart that I can live without him and I know in my heart that I don't want to--that's a good place to start, right?
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Rachel Cohn |
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266ab98
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And once I'm pretending that's the truth, I figure it might as well be the truth.
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Rachel Cohn |
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4010ce8
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Snarl sent me candy! Oh, how I might love him!)
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Rachel Cohn |
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d28aa95
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For sure, the last thing I was going to write to her was All I want for Christmas is you.
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Rachel Cohn |
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a906ef9
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I want to believe there is a somebody out there just for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody.
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Rachel Cohn |
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71a5040
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It seemed weird to me that he'd spent his Christmas alone ... and had seemed to like it. He hadn't seemed to think anyone should feel sorry for him about that, either.
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Rachel Cohn |
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7450496
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In the future, I decided I would tackle the solitude thing more enthusiastically, so long as solitude meant I could also walk in the park and pet a few dogs and pass them treats.
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Rachel Cohn |
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5382caa
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Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language.
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Rachel Cohn |
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a407c40
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when people say right person, wrong time, or wrong person, right time, it's usually a cop-out. They think that fate is playing with them. That we're all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick out of watching. But the universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do. Yes, you can theorize until you're blue in the face whether something might have worked at another time, or with someone else. But you kno..
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Rachel Cohn |
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8131cdd
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But whether or not you are here, you are here--because these words are for you, and they wouldn't exist if you weren't here in some way. This notebook is a strange instrument--the player doesn't know the music until it's being played.
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Rachel Cohn |
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b154f26
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I decided to give myself a Christmas present this year. I decided to spend the day only speaking to animals (real and stuffed), select humans as necessary so long as they weren't my parents or Langston, and a Snarl in a red Moleskine notebook--if he returned it to me.
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Rachel Cohn |