Erin McCahan Quotes

If you get it tested and find out you're actually retarded, that would be irony.

Come dance with me, he says, taking my hand, and someday I'll explain to him that I already am.

Attraction and infatuation produce strong, exciting emotions that could easily be taken for love. But attraction wanes, and infatuation passes. Love doesn't end.

I can speak the languages of lots of groups and learn others with some ease, but no matter how fluent I am, when I'm not speaking Josie, I am merely acting. We all are when we interact outside of our natural cultures. It is inevitable, because it is impossible to be fully yourself in a foreign language.

According to a high percentage of novels I've read, it appears that falling in love at the beach is both easier and more satisfying than falling in love in a grocery store or mall.

I don't think I have as many friends as I thought I did, not close ones, not many who I connect with on that deep level of language that doesn't just allow us to be ourselves with each other but allows us to be understood, even when we're not saying anything.
Silence - awkward or comfortable - is a language too. Awkward silence screams, "We have nothing in common." Comfortable silence proves just how much we do.

I'm not entirely sure there is a formula for this,' I say. But I wish there were. I would have followed it, plugging in all my data for x and all of Ethan's for y. And I would have worked out the results before involving my emotions, and I wouldn't feel as I feel now
like I've been dumped for real by an imaginary guy.

Forcing a subject to respond the way you want him to only confirms your bias, my dear.

He winks at me and ignores me for the rest of supper, during which he instructs Ross about current diabetic treatments, corrects Maggie's perfectly pronounced Renoir as Ren-wah, and keeps fondling Kate's breasts. Okay, not exactly, but he touches her arm or hand whenever he talks or she does, and it's so frequent it's bordering on molestation. I can't believe no one's putting a stop to this.

Need I say more?'
'No, because you're wrong, and I'd hate for you to keep embarrassing yourself.

In someone else's language, you become a visitor, a guest - sometimes a very welcome guest received with shrieks and hugs - but still always a guest. Because as soon as you stop speaking the native language of the group, you stop being one of the group. And then you're just alone, no matter who you're with.

I think I'm nostalgic for a time I never experienced.

I want you to write for you and about you, from the depth of you.

You realize I can never sleep under this blanket with this thread as it is. The thought of it would plague me all night.'
'Were you going to?' he asks, looking over his shoulder at me.
'Well, I'm not going to now.'
'Suggesting you were going to at some point?'
'Suggesting no matter where I sleep in the future, it will not be under this blanket.'
'I was not aware our friendship included sleepovers,' he says. 'Will we be doing each other's hair as well?'
'Yes. I long to see you in an up-do.

Dream of me, he said.
Dream of you? I'm doing that while I'm awake.