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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 95cec1a | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 985cc8a | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 7be4b7b | 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.. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 9748c95 | 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.. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| abf7e6f | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 54c5869 | I started to write: Langston deserves to be sick. But I erased that and wrote, Okay. I'll make him some. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| abd6b4c | 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? | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 266ab98 | And once I'm pretending that's the truth, I figure it might as well be the truth. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 4010ce8 | Snarl sent me candy! Oh, how I might love him!) | Rachel Cohn | ||
| d28aa95 | For sure, the last thing I was going to write to her was All I want for Christmas is you. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| a906ef9 | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 71a5040 | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 7450496 | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 5382caa | Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| a407c40 | 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.. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 8131cdd | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| b154f26 | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| e59ed7c | My hands were starting to shake a little. Because I hadn't known that I knew these things. Just having a notebook to write them in, and having someone to write them to, made them all rise to the surface. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| cacc930 | Driver, can you tell him that I'm sorry? I wasn't supposed to be like this. I swear. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| c74fa38 | There was the other part of it, too--the 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. That was, I had to admit, less a concern to me. Because the rest of it seemed so much bigger. But I still had enough longing for that concept that I didn't want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a.. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| d3729a3 | I KNOW! Your name is Beckham, isn't it? | Rachel Cohn | ||
| b02654d | The world was too full of wastrels and waifs, sycophants and spies--all of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or written suspect. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| cbbec25 | I think it's time to experience life outside the notebook. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 82021f9 | Perhaps this was what was so unnerving about Lily at this moment--the trust that was required in what we were doing. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 208296b | I made the mistake of turning back to look at her one last time before I left the room. It was heartbreaking, really--she just sat there, stunned. She looked like she was waking up in a strange place--only she knew she hadn't gone to sleep yet, and that this was actually life. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 6fae519 | We hadn't vowed to write every day, and we hadn't written every day. We hadn't sworn to be true to each other, because there hadn't been much to be true to. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| e194500 | The whole thing was silly," I said. "Please tell her there's no need to apologize. We set ourselves up for this. I was never going to be the guy in her head. And she was never going to be the girl in mine. And that's okay. Seriously." | Rachel Cohn | ||
| f5aa31d | Because I don't want to," I said. "Not because of the way she is now--I know that's not what she's like. There was no way it was going to be as easy as the notebook. I get that now." | Rachel Cohn | ||
| da3b619 | I'd always hoped but never believed that I could have such an adventure on my own. That I could own it. And love it. But it had happened. The notebook had made it so. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 22f5efe | I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, they sang. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 684d16d | Let's make plans," I ventured. And Sofia smiled and said, "No, let's leave it to chance." | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 123c8f1 | Why do girls always fall for guys with the attention span of drosophila? | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 854e6b7 | But I couldn't concentrate on writing in the notebook. I wanted to live inside it, not write in it. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 23d947a | But, you see, that's the luxury of being a lout--you get to be selective about when you care and when you don't. The rest of us get stuck when your care goes shallow. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 38db62b | 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. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| d50f594 | It is possibly true what Grandpa's buddies have repeatedly told me: Teenage boys cannot be trusted. Their intentions are not pure. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| f0d1652 | I turned to find Priya, this girl from my school, somewhere between a friend and acquaintance--a frequaintance, as it were. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| f795f50 | He sold the business but kept the corner block building, | Rachel Cohn | ||
| c53e880 | So even though it doesn't seem like anything's changed--" "--things change all the time, mostly in little ways. That's how it goes, I guess." | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 85ebfe2 | There are just lots of possibilities in the world, I've decided. Dash. Boris. I need to keep my mind open for what could happen and not decide that the world is hopeless if what I want to happen doesn't happen. Because something else great might happen in between. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| e5dbd7d | Many years ago, he owned a neighborhood family grocery store on Avenue A in the East Village. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 327b12b | Of course you want to get to know her. But at the same time, you want to feel like you already know her. That you will know her instantly. Such a fairy tale. | Rachel Cohn | ||
| df20016 | Game over," you say, and I don't know which I take more exception to--the fact that you say that it's over, or the fact that you say it's a game. It's only over when one of us keeps the notebook for good. It's only a game if there is an absence of meaning. And we've already gone too far for that." | Rachel Cohn | ||
| 3d02d75 | I don't think we should ever try to meet again; there's such freedom in that. Instead, let our words continue to meet. (See next postcard.) | Rachel Cohn |