Alison Rose Greenberg > Quotes

“I that too often, women take pieces of themselves
they have no reason to hate, and they carry those pieces around like failures. If enough women stopped apologizing, then maybe there'd be less of an expectation for us to always burn bright and stand still. Maybe our complications would become our backbones instead of our scarlet letters. Hannah, it's a relief to stand tall in my own body, rather than shrink because I'm not the woman someone else expected me to be.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Bad Luck Bridesmaid

“Complicated women. We sure are fucking magical.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Bad Luck Bridesmaid

“I want you. I want you, and everything that comes with wanting you,” he said, with eyes unwavering on me.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“You know the moment you realize the person across from you could be the person who fills the blanks inside your soul? I’d felt this once before—but at fourteen I didn’t understand how rare it was. For the first time in nearly a decade, I was drunk on the possibility of someone else. I”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“I had wandered the halls of my future with the false confidence of a mediocre white man, and I would pay for it like a woman.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“I don’t know how to lose you, and I don’t know how to be with you,” Garrett finally said.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Success doesn’t come easily for women who dare to be themselves. It’s a painful road, and Summer and I had already let down a few people along our chosen paths, and we’d let down more. But if we were lucky, at the end of our roads, we’d look back and smile, realizing that we’d made ourselves proud.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“A wise woman once told me, 'fuck the guy who won't move mountains to be with you.' You're worth moving mountains for too, Zoey."

"I know," I smiled, my body exhaling into the comfort of trusting its own worth.

I knew I was worth moving mountains for. I had always known it. But when the world tells you you're difficult, at some point, a little voice creeps inside and you start to ask yourself, "Am I the mountain? Am I the very thing standing in my own way?

I wasn't a mountain. No part of me would smooth my complicated terrain so that I could be easier for someone else to conquer. And I wasn't the sun. I wouldn't stand still for someone else. I was a woman who was on her own path, and that terrified the shit out of almost everyone.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Bad Luck Bridesmaid

“What can I say? I’m an enigma.” I wasn’t. I was an open book begging to be read.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“To be honest, I started dating someone a handful of weeks ago, and I thought it wasn’t a good idea to fall in love with you. And when you sing, it’s hard to not fall in love with you. So, that’s why I didn’t come see you play.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“We see divorce as a failure, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes we have to wave a white flag in order to save ourselves, or be ourselves.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Hope’s always the last friend to leave”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Maggie Vine, I could listen to you sing every day until I die,” he whispered, real low. Asher pressed his hand against the wall, pushing himself out of the elevator bank, with eyes that refused to leave mine as the doors shut between us. It took me five whole minutes to remember how to use my legs.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“I love you so fucking much,” I whispered, the truth of the statement splintering me in half. “You’ve—you’ve changed my life—not just once, but twice.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“After that night, I thought that for you, the idea of me was always going to be better than the real thing.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“A childhood therapist once told my mom I was “filled with promise.” I had been promising for over three decades—like a drug that could work, but lacked federal funding.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving you,” he said, super casually. “Well that’s cool,” I said through a teary smile. A soft grin found his chiseled face. I exhaled again, grateful to be able to give all of my heart to the person who could give me all of his—to the person who I could share a lifetime of hopes and dreams with.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“The less I knew, the less I could hold on to and tear apart in my head. The more I knew, the more it hurt my heart.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“The finish line was coming into view. I could live without the object in the rearview. Not just live without—I could soar without it. For the first time in so long, the what is was better than the what-if.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“The love of your life doesn’t have to last forever. I would live the rest of my life knowing that loving and being loved by Asher Reyes—twice in this lifetime—was more than enough.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“I watch you throw hope to the wolves You shrug as they rip the dream of us apart Why should our finale have a heart Go ahead, burn me at the stake saying words better left unsaid Until the ashes of our maybes become my bed”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“and let’s hold on to hope for these two crazy kids. Sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes people make big sacrifices. And sometimes”—he tugged me closer to his chest, the warmth of his heart fluttering against my back—“sometimes, lovers follow through with the promises they made,”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Women don’t have midlife crises, because we’ve spent our lives constantly in crisis.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Maggie, he’s so in love with you that he can’t even meet your eyes because it hurts too much.” “I’m the type to look at something harder when it burns.” “He’s a man. Men look away. It’s how they go through life—compartmentalizing and putting what hurts them in boxes. You’re in a box right now.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Hope’s reality had mostly let me down, but the sliver of possibilities pushed me through all the same.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Chinese takeout on the shag carpet as When Harry Met Sally played softly in the background.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“The ashes of our maybes will keep me warm”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“Because I wasn’t on these steps sitting next to my soulmate. I was sitting next to The One That Got Away. And I had to let him go.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“and let’s just say, she didn’t need to read the New York mag article to know that Cole Wyan is trash. But she sure as hell wanted to help the woman who publicly took him down.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

“It’s not the heartbreak that defines who we are, it’s how we react to it. My father left scars on my mother’s heart, but my mother let the pain keep her from making new ones.”
― Alison Rose Greenberg, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice