Caren Lissner > Quotes

“Being lonely isn’t about wanting to be with other people—it’s about wanting to be with people who really care about you.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“You know,” Hallie said, “they make all these antidepressants. They should make a pill that stops you from loving the people you can’t have, and makes you attracted to those you can.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“We just have to accept that people are going to stay in our hearts, even when they don’t stay in our lives.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“The most amazing discovery in the world is someone who understands what you’re about without your having to go through your entire life history to explain it.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“It was too hard to fall in love with someone, learn all of their quirks and passions, assume you’d spend the rest of your life with them, and then suddenly have them snatched away forever.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“There are a great many things I would do a study on if I had the time, materials and funding. It bothers me that I can’t. I wonder if others are irked by this, this incessant drive to plumb a million things and the inability to delve adequately into any one of them.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“As I get close to the subway, a guy in a raincoat seethes at me, “Smile!” This makes me feel worse. I was lost in thought, minding my own business, and someone felt he had the right to disturb me anyway. Doesn’t he realize that by making me feel like I was doing something wrong, he only made me feel less like smiling? It actually had the reverse effect he intended. It’s like striking a bawling kid to stop him from crying, and we’ve all seen that done.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“The true test of a relationship, Gert thought, is if you can tell someone the most boring story in the world about yourself, and they’ll still have something to add.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“But when ninety-five percent of out-of-bed activities hold the possibility of pain, to be pain-free is simply the most delicious feeling in the world.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“I think that when people get lonely, they try to find someone to blame. But there isn’t really anyone to blame. It just takes a long time to find the right person.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“Maybe we should all decide we’re going to meet the man of our dreams when we’re thirty-seven. Then we’ll stop squeezing into tight shirts and walking around half-naked and analysing every encounter as future husband material. We’ll stop feeling the need to put on makeup to take out the trash just in case he’s walking by. Maybe we should just assume that we’ll meet our dream man at some future point, and stop driving ourselves crazy before then.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“Being smart doesn’t mean being skilled at social interaction. No one ever said being a genius was easy.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“There was all the time in the world now – plenty of time for self-analysis, for self-doubts, for regrets. Being part of a couple meant you fit somewhere, that your cracks and erosions were hidden to the rest of the world. When you suddenly had that ripped apart, the hidden blemishes were exposed like cross-sections of a log.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“I can spot an underemployed lazy intellectual anywhere.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“If you ask why I’m not interested in someone, I might say their nose is too big, or they don’t know how to dress, or they’re too thin or too fat or too plain. But the truth is, I only notice those things because of the real reason - that I’m just not feeling anything. But people don’t want to hear that. They always want an explanation. So I have to come up with something concrete even though feelings aren’t like that. If I did meet a guy and I felt happy with him for whatever reason, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what he wore or how tall he was or what he did for a living. But when I’m with someone and it just doesn’t feel right, that’s when I start noticing the bad haircut or Chicago accent or unibrow. And it’s true that tomorrow I may go home with someone who you think is totally wrong for me. And the next day I might meet a perfectly nice guy who you think I should feel excited about, but I don’t. But if I do go home with someone, it means for a change, something feels right. For a change, I’m feeling hopeful. I just want to feel happy when I’m with someone. Is that so wrong?”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“So there’s a spiral death trap of dating. When you’re with someone, you look happy and relaxed, and thus, a lot more people than you need are attracted to you. When you’re sulky and alone, no one is attracted to you, and thus, you stay sulky and alone.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“There are no single guys who don’t have at least one major flaw, and a flaw, I might add, that would stop you from dating them – even if everything else was great. Why? Simple math. Women are interesting and honest and sensitive. Most men are not. There is only one normal, decent single guy for every five women in this city. This is what’s known as the Great Male Statistic. Girls don’t want to face the GMS. They want to believe there’s someone for everyone. The truth hurts. You only start coming to terms with the GMS when you’re twenty-six or twenty-seven. It actually killed Sylvia Plath. She finally found this guy in grad school who she thought was so great, and she married him, and he cheated on her.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“I don't know what the answer is."
If psychologists don't have the answers, and preachers don't, and I don't, who does?
Certainly not anyone who pretends to. They know least of all.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“So how were these people judged? How will we be judged? We get up every morning thinking that if we're good, we'll make it to heaven, and if we're bad, we'll have trouble. But then we see a six-year-old girl die of cancer. We see raging waters and mud swallow innocent people in South America. And we see our neighbor, who cheats on his wife or steals from his boss, become wealthy. We see our cousin, the liar, win the lottery. What sense does this make?"
A few people shake their heads. I want to know, too.
"Got me," Natto says. "Got me. But I'll tell you this. I want to know. I want to find out. And I'll tell you two more things. One is, overall, we have seen a lot of times in life that what comes around goes around, haven't we?"
A few people nod.
"In the case of Venezuela, there's no good explanation. But we see sinners locked up every day, and brave men rewarded. And last night on the news, they showed heroes, people who saved lives in Venezuela. We saw people working together. Rescue workers. Relief workers. And that is God."
He stops pacing.
"That is God," he says again.
He goes back to pacing. He has a strong gait.
"These people do good. And if one of their planes crashed on the way back to whereever they came from? What sense would that make? I don't know. I don't claim to have all the answers. And maybe there are cases where I will never ever understand them. This is something a lot of churches don't want to admit, but I really might never have the answers. And sometimes, this might make me very angry."
I like this.
"But I said there were two more things I'll tell you. One is that we have seen that what comes around goes around. And here's the second thing. We judge within ourselves. Those people in Venezuela, the dying, if they led a good life, they knew it. They died at peace. They knew that they didn't deserve it, that it was just something that happened. But a guy who's been hurting people, who suddenly feels a rumble and the sky caves in, he's lying there, torn apart, and besides the physical pain, he knows in his heart, or he feels in his heart, that he's being punished. He can't lie there and say, "Please God I don't deserve to die". Because he knows he did wrong, and he has to apologize and make amends. And so in that way, judgement comes upon him. And we all know in our hearts, whether we're to be judged in the afterworld or not, that while we're on this earth, we judge ourselves.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“How come everyone tells me what to do, but they would never let me do a tenth of the same back to them?”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“When I was nineteen and I didn’t have a boyfriend, I never felt bad about it. Because I figured someday I would. My friends and I had plenty of fun alone. What ruins the fun is the fear that you’ll be that way forever.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“If I had to do my own (favorite) film character list, #1 would be CF Cane. #2 would be Nurse Ratched, #3 would be Dr. Strangelove, and #4-21 would be Sybil.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“You don’t believe it because you don’t want to.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“Gert knew they were only trying to help by dragging her out. Everyone was always trying to “help” – like the people who told her that eventually, it would hurt less, or that she was strong and she’d move on. But they had no idea how many times per day she heard expressions, songs or references that reminded her of him. Every time something bad happened to her, or she felt lonely, she thought of him on impulse, as she’d done for most of her adult life – and was reminded again that he was gone. They’d met sophomore year of college, so that was eight years or 2,920 days of memories she had to suppress in order to even feel remotely okay. Didn’t people understand that?”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“You seem awfully serious for a nineteen-year-old."

I don't know what to say to that. Now I feel bad, just like I felt when the guy yelled "Smile." As if I was doing something wrong just by existing.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

“It's easy to be moral if you have exactly what you want.”
― Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby