I've always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

— Rachel Cohn

I walked inside Macy’s and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated.

— Rachel Cohn

I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.

— Rachel Cohn

I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They want to hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.

— Rachel Cohn

I was coming down off the last painkiller left in my dresser drawer after Autumn tossed my stash. At that moment I was so groggy and happy I would have accepted a date with Oscar the Grouch - and planned to do some serious feeling up on the green furry beast too. Yeah, stooping to pharmaceutical-inspired sex fantasies about garbage can Sesame Street characters - that had to be the best Just Say No drug lecture a girl in a leg cast could ever receive to make her go cold turkey off the meds.

— Rachel Cohn

Know what the best thing your true love can give you is?” I asked him.“What?” said Dash.”True love.

— Rachel Cohn

Maybe your unspeakable defects give you power too?

— Rachel Cohn

My brother, Langston, said, “Lily, you don’t understand because you’ve never been in love. If you had a boyfriend, you’d understand.” Langston has a new boyfriend and all I understand from that is a sorry state of co-dependence.

— Rachel Cohn

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 at this moment I am forgetting about time and Tail because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.

— Rachel Cohn

One part of Judaism called Sikkim slam. It says that the world has been broken into pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job – everyone’s job – is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole again ... Maybe we’re the pieces. Maybe what we’re supposed to do is come together. That’s how we stop the breaking.

— Rachel Cohn