Kristen Roupenian Books & Quotes

“Ted kisses Rachel with tongue and squeezes her ass. In doing so, he discovers that it is possible to enjoy something and yet not care about it in the slightest. He finds this sensation—feeling pleasure, and simultaneously feeling detached from the pleasure—to be, itself, quite pleasurable. He wonders if he has miraculously become a Buddhist, or suffered a psychotic break.”

Humor Pleasure Detached Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“He felt ashamed of himself, of course, but the warmth of that shame pooled in his crotch, amplifying his pleasure.”

Desire Pleasure Shame Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Her memory like a skipping record, bumping continually up against the scratch.”

Memory Simile Forgetting Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“She doesn't know what to call it—this free-falling sensation she feels every time she looks at Taylor, like her hands are closing again and again on emptiness—but she thinks she knows better than to call it love.”

Love Feelings Relationships Simile Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Unnamed

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“All I've ever wanted is to be loved. Well, to be worshiped. To be desired, madly and painfully, to the exclusion of all else. Is that so wrong?”

Desire Sex Passionate Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Desired Worshiped

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Anna loves Ted, but she does not want him in a way that causes her to suffer; she does not want him desperately, despite herself. And it turns out that is how Ted has always wanted to be wanted: the way he has always wanted women. The way Anna wanted Marco, and he wanted Anna, and Rachel (or so it seems, in retrospect) wanted him. In the absence of this painful wanting, Ted has trouble getting hard.”

Desire Suffering Painful Unrequited Love Unattainable Wanting Love Triangle Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Vicious Cycle

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“The way he looked at her? Imagine somebody looking at you like that.”

Desire Devotion Gazing Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Thinking about it too hard makes her angry: ardent Taylor, who wants more passionately than anyone Kath has ever met, deserves more than these insulting parodies of lust. But what does Taylor want?”

Desire Passionate Lust Deserving Wanting Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“That was how I responded to beauty, in both women and men: drawn to it at first, and then recoiling. Ruled by my own shallow impulses, then angry at the trick.”

Desire Beauty Shallow Contradictory Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Repulsion Warring Impulses

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“She can feel it scratching at her, her anger, wedged in the space where the two halves of her rib cage meet.”

Emotion Anger Description Feeling Visceral Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“. . . banishing his desires to the realm of the imagination, where they couldn't do any harm.”

Imagination Desires Unspoken Repressed Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Ted thought: I am probably not dying but I am scared and alone and I don't like this.”

Dying Scared Alone Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“When they got married, she could include them in her wedding vows: You were always there for me, always. You were always there for me, always. You were always there for me, always. They were the most beautiful words he'd ever heard.”

Love Fantasy Romantic Steadfast Deluded Delusional Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“I didn't mean to hurt anyone, he tries to tell them. I just wanted to be seen, and loved for who I am. The problem was, it was all a misunderstanding. I pretended to be a good person, and then I couldn't stop.”

Sad Goodness Stuck Trapped Masquerade Faking It Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Why did no one satisfy her? What was she looking for that she couldn't find? Her battered heart offered her no answers.”

Heartache Discontent Elusive Dissatisfied Unsatisfied Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Hard To Please

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“So this was kissing. He had to admit Rachel seemed into it. She kept kind of rolling around and sighing. Would he be enjoying himself more if he were kissing Anna? Frankly, it was hard to ever imagine being turned on by this activity. Two boneless slabs of flesh, flopping around, like a pair of slugs mating in the cavern of your mouth. Gross, Ted. What was wrong with him?”

Humor Kissing Disappointment Cynical Overthinking Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Disconnect

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“After a few minutes, he decided that kissing wasn't that hard, really, although it certainly wasn't everything it was cracked up to be . . . He tried closing his eyes but it made him uncomfortable, like someone was going to sneak up behind him and plunge a knife into his back.”

Humor Kissing Disappointment Overrated Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Letdown

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“She'd been on the hunt for some badass dude who'd go down with her into whatever dark place she was trapped in, but instead she'd ended up with this lame-ass coward, a guy who's too fucked up to tell her to get lost, but also too scared to do what he said he would do.”

Suffering Disappointment Indecisive Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“And she did think Robert was cute. Not so cute that she would have, say, gone up to him at a party, but cute enough that she could have drummed up an imaginary crush on him if he'd sat across from her during a dull class.”

Dating Attraction Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Ted was wildly uncomfortable. He wasn't quite sure who Rachel was on a date with, but it didn't seem to be him. He'd contributed nothing to the outing; as far as he could tell, she could have brought an inflatable doll with her to the movie and had an equally good time.”

Relationships Dating Uncomfortable Awkward Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Out Of Sync

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Oh, my God, Ted," she moaned, fakely. They dated for the next four months.”

Relationships Dating Fake Omniscient Faking It Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Interpersonal Relationships

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“What is wrong with me, that even this fucking loser won't give me what I want?”

Relationships Dating Rejection Low Self Esteem Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“But he still wished Anna would do something to reassure him—ideally burst into tears and say, You were always there for me, always, and plead with him to forgive her for all her years of neglect—but he'd have settled for even a hint that she intended to make an active effort to meet up.”

Waiting Fantasy Sad Desperate Unrequited Love Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Unequal Affections

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“I can't believe you called me," Anna said. "Nobody else from home has called me in forever. It's like they forgot about me. You think you're so close to people but when it comes down to it, they just forget.”

Relationships Sad Lonely Forgotten Abandoned Friendships Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“I wish I could change everything about myself but it's just—it's too late to do anything, that's the problem. It's all so fucked up, and I just don't who I am anymore, you know? Like, who is this person who made all these choices that I just have to live with? I look back at that person and I hate her, I hate her so much for what she did to me, that person is like my nemesis, my worst enemy, but the problem is, that person is me.”

Change Identity Regret Sad Self Loathing Self Sabotage Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Own Worst Enemy

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Listen, listen. I can explain. There's a bad Ted underneath the good Ted, yes, but then, under that, there's a Ted who's good for real. But no one ever sees him; his whole life, no one ever has. Underneath it all, I'm just that kid who wanted nothing more than to be loved and didn't know how to make it happen, even though I tried and tried and tried.”

Identity Sad Good And Bad Unloved Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Futile Try Hard

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Every so often, over the next day or so, she would find herself in a gray, daydreamy mood, missing something, and she'd realize that it was Robert she missed, not the real Robert but the Robert she'd imagined on the other end of all those text messages during break.”

Relationships Sad Disillusioned Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Reality Vs Fantasy Reality Vs Expectations Cat Person

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“There are tears in her eyes. Ted has never seen her look so despondent, and Anna often looks very, very sad.”

Sad Crying Depressed Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Despondent

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Whenever he was bored or anxious, his brain distracted itself by worrying at the question of whether he could ever make Anna like him, like a dog working the last bits of marrow from a bone.”

Relationships Obsession Obsessive Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Kids are real resilient," says Babs, and all the women bob their heads. Bullshit, Marla thinks. Maybe some kids are resilient. But are all of them? Is Tilly? Resilience—the ability to brush off pain—is something Marla herself has only fitfully and imperfectly grown into, over time. The petty miseries of her own early childhood are some of her most vivid memories, even now.”

Children Resilient Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Given how little contact Ted had now with actual Anna, it was like he was in a relationship with an imaginary friend.”

Relationships Fantasy Separation Imaginary Long Distance Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“For the first time, Ted imagined fucking Anna the way he (almost) fucked Rachel: cruelly, without concern for her comfort, fully acknowledging that as much as he loved her, he hated her, too.”

Sex Relationships Complicated Contradictory Love And Hate Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Margot thought: oh, no. But the thought of what it would take to stop what she had set in motion was overwhelming; it would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn't that she was scared he would try to force her to do something against her will but that insisting they stop now, after everything she'd done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious, as if she'd ordered something at a restaurant and then, once the food arrived, had changed her mind and sent it back.”

Sex Communication Consent Interpersonal Skills Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Cat Person

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“And she'd be panting underneath him and they'd fuck and he'd make her come so hard that afterward they would be together for the rest of their lives. It was a foolproof plan. Oh, wait. No it wasn't. It was a sexual fantasy, and he was an idiot.”

Humor Sex Fantasy Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“He had no faith in love's capacity to cause him anything but pain.”

Love Pain Guarded Disillusioned Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“On the other hand, she happily kept him informed about plans she had with other people, providing a steady flow of information about excursions that were about to happen, details of dates or parties that were always this close to coming together. As long as he listened, without complaint, to an endless description of activities that were supposed to happen without him, there was a 30 percent chance, at least, that Anna would change her mind at the last minute, claim to be unable to handle the unbearable burden of whatever her social plans were supposed to be, and decide to hang out with him instead. She'd arrive at his house and collapse in exaggerated relief: "I am so glad we're doing this, I was so not in the mood for another party at Maria's." As though they were both equally at the mercy of circumstance, similarly oblivious to the power dynamic that governed their "friendship.”

Relationships Friendship Careless Cruel Power Dynamics Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Thoughtless Unequal Affections Power Imbalance

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Did he even exist in her mind, as a living, breathing, thinking person? He spent so much time trying to figure out what she was thinking, but what kind of a consciousness did she imagine lived behind the mask of his face?”

Relationships Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Unequal Affections Power Imbalance

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Still, she really did seem to be absurdly into this. It was almost existentially unsettling, that two people in such close physical proximity could be experiencing the same moment so differently.”

Sex Relationships Sad Unspoken Existential Crisis Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Disconnect Interpersonal Relationships

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“As Anna poured her heart out over the phone, Ted's own heart lit up like a solar flare. He wanted nothing more than to show Anna how he saw her: how beautiful and perfect she was in his eyes. He needed to let her know that he was going to carry that memory—that knowledge—of her inside him, so that no matter what happened between them, no matter how down she got on herself, he could do this for her: he could love her, selflessly and unceasingly, with total commitment and purity, for the rest of his life. An hour later, Anna sniffled. 'Thank you for listening, Ted,' she said. 'It really means a lot to me.' I would die for you, Ted thought. 'No problemo,' Ted said.”

Love Unconditional Love Unspoken Understatement Declaration Of Love Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Why do you like me? Why can't you tell I'm not that into you?”

Relationships Unspoken Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Miscommunication Incompatible

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“There must be a German word for this feeling, when the elaborate contortions of your own thinking rose to the surface and became suddenly and unpleasantly visible. Like walking past a mirror in a crowded mall and thinking: Who is that dude with the terrible posture, and why is he cringing like he expects someone to punch him, I'd like to punch him—oh wait, that's me.”

Thinking Exposed Self Hatred Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Untranslatable

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Lizzie is hapless about romance in an ironic, self-deprecating way.”

Romance Ironic Self Deprecating Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Hapless

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“He unrequitedly loved Anna; Anna unrequitedly loved Marco; Marco probably unrequitedly loved some rando none of them had ever met. The world was pitiless. Nobody had any power over anyone else.”

Love Relationships Unfair Unrequited Love Love Triangle Pattern Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Vicious Cycle

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“She puts her head on his shoulder, and for a second, it's like the other good night, the night of the bonfire, the brief lifting of the yoke, freedom from the circle: Marco hurting Anna, Anna hurting Ted, Ted hurting Rachel, these endless rounds of jealousy and harm.”

Relationships Hurt Endless Love Triangle Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This Vicious Cycle

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“He felt like something deep inside had broken. He'd asked for nothing; he'd tried to content himself with as little as it was possible to want. Yet here he was, feeling humiliated and small once again.”

Hurt Sad Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“And it would have been one thing, all of these suitors agreed, to have been rejected for a reason, but to be passed over simply because one was, in some vague way, not good enough—that was an unequivocal blow.”

Hurt Dating Rejection Kristen Roupenian You Know You Want This

Book:You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Source: You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

Kristen Roupenian Books

You Know You Want This: Cat Person and...

Related Quotes