Kerry Cohen > Quotes

“I heard that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
― Kerry Cohen

“I don’t want to be in pain anymore. I want to be done, to be left unburdened and naked, to tear the hurt off my body like layers of clothes. At the end of the trail I stop and bend forward, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. I’m not healed, but for this moment, I’m better.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“This isn’t a story about how some guy finally saves me from myself.
I’m my own hero here; I do the saving.”
― Kerry Cohen Hoffman

“Being alone feels more honest.”
― Kerry Cohen Hoffmann

“He remains kind, but a feeling nags at me, staying with me long after I leave. And it's this: It doesn't matter what I did to him. He can choose to remain detached, untouched by me. Something I can't do back.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“Maybe I don't have to perfect, I just have to be good enough.”
― Kerry Cohen

“I’ve been grasping at nothing, running in circles, trying desperately to fill the emptiness inside with nothing but air. If I think about it too much, I feel shame, so much shame. So I don’t.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“I love the idea that a family doesn't need so much stuff to be whole, that perhaps there are other ways to feel full.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“Everyone says your first time should be magical. You should be in love. You should feel safe. Because you can't go back once you've done it. That will always be your first time. Years later this is what I'll remember as my first time. That inflated sensation is long gone. Now I just feel nauseous; it
s the feeling I get when reality dawns.”
― Kerry Cohen, Easy

“…his solid body, the weight of him, his movement, all so real, all so there. It doesn’t matter who he is. There are so many of them. Him. Me. Our movement together. Proof, I think again and again, of being worthwhile. Proof of being loved.”
― Kerry Cohen

“It's just I'd rather sleep through the days so I'll be awake for the nights, when the boys are out.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“He hoots as he passes. Another one whistles. I know this is stupid, inviting trouble. But it feels so good to be wanted, I can't help myself.”
― Kerry Cohen, Easy

“I begin to learn there are certain things I shouldn't tell her. Like when we meet boys at Dorrian's and I give mine a blow job, or the time I messed around with a boy in the back near the bathrooms. Amy wants to be intimate with boys too, but to her this kind of conduct is slutty. I suppose it is. She, like most girls, including the Jennifers, has a different relationship to boys than I do. She engages in sexual acts with them if she wants, but from my vantage point it looks like she can take them or leave them if they are not just right. She considers whether she actually likes someone before she jumps into bed with him. She isn't wracked with anxiety when there aren't any boys around. And she doesn't need them to live, which is what it feels like for me.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“Depicting yourself as a whole person on the page doesn’t only mean recognizing your role in a bad situation. It means being emotionally authentic. It means showing all of yourself: the shameful parts, the embarrassing parts, the parts that you might regret or that you wish weren’t true.”
― Kerry Cohen, The Truth of Memoir: How to Write about Yourself and Others with Honesty, Emotion, and Integrity

“A sort of intimacy is forged when someone reads your book and both you and your reader wind up less alone in the world.”
― Kerry Cohen, The Truth of Memoir: How to Write about Yourself and Others with Honesty, Emotion, and Integrity

“Artist colonies are notorious for breaking up marriages and housing affairs.”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

“What if Mom believes her memories as fiercely as I do? What if my memories are merely constructions like hers?”
― Kerry Cohen, Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity