Top 35 Cara McKenna Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There are no normal people,” I tell him. “Only people who are good at acting normal.”

— Cara McKenna

2. “There was summer in the air, a warm breeze that reminded me of broken teenage curfews and a hundred once-favorite songs and forgotten crushes.”

— Cara McKenna

3. “We just do as we’re told we should. High school, college, job, marriage, kids. Like, one size fits all.”

— Cara McKenna

4. “His admiration felt like sunshine on her naked skin, and her heart broke for the woman she’d been for so long, always running for the shadows.”

— Cara McKenna

5. “I wanted to memorize every cut and bruise and hard swell of his body, to possess that knowledge with the accuracy of a map and pore over it in my memory on lonely nights.”

— Cara McKenna

6. “She liked the shape of his shoulders under his T-shirt, and wished this were like Zappos, so she could rotate him and examine his design from multiple angles and browse other women’s reviews.”

— Cara McKenna

7. “But back then I was inarguably gawky, and because I knew it would be laughable for me to profess my love for the cutest, most popular boys at my school, I chose to act as though I couldn’t care less about them. That I was above such nonsense. In truth they intimidated me, because they had the power to disappoint and humiliate me, and confirm everything I feared about my own awkwardness.”

— Cara McKenna

8. “Say thanks, not sorry. Women have been apologizing for too long.”

— Cara McKenna

9. “At any rate, she knew why she was attracted to Flynn now – attracted to being with a guy who could completely dominate her in bed. It was what she’d been doing in every aspect of her life lately, wanting to hole up in the backseat and not be asked to drive. Just hand over the keys to someone else.”

— Cara McKenna

10. “Don’t look at me like that,” I warned him, the beer making me bold. “Look at you how?” “Like I’m wearing edible underwear, and there’s a place card in my panties with your name on it.”

— Cara McKenna

11. “He’s young and tan and hung like Christmas has come early,...”

— Cara McKenna

12. “I studied his eyes. They were nearly a color today, a frozen lake reflecting a clear blue...”

— Cara McKenna

13. “Do you hate quitters as much as you hate impatient people?” Flynn smiled. “I try and hate everybody equally.”

— Cara McKenna

14. “All that you got going on with the big eyes and the pink cheeks, I can see through that act. You’re a raccoon underneath that bunny costume. I like your claws as much as your whiskers.”

— Cara McKenna

15. “If I fall in love with you, it’ll be because I know you inside and out, and because you’re somebody I want to be a better person for – instead of in spite of.”

— Cara McKenna

16. “I’ve never before met anyone whose outside so matched their soul. You could drill clean through Didier and find nothing but layer upon layer of beauty, dark and strange and kind and prurient, but all of it perfectly, utterly pure.”

— Cara McKenna

17. “I’d rather go without and be lonely than not be how I really want with someone.”

— Cara McKenna

18. “Kelly laughed and his smile caught me off guard. It changed his face, like clouds had broken and a big beam of Jesus-light had shot down from heaven to paint the world gold.”

— Cara McKenna

19. “He’d come out here really only feeling he was two-dimensional, at best. But she brought out so many sides of him. Ones he’d never even met before himself.”

— Cara McKenna

20. “His expression transforms, looking mean in a good way, promising me greed and aggression, things I’d never ask for but long to see.”

— Cara McKenna

21. “His mood-ring eyes were neutral gray, summer clouds that threatened no rain.”

— Cara McKenna

22. “Tell me how you feel about me, with your body.”

— Cara McKenna

23. “Because you’ve got something special in you, something that won’t stay buried, no matter how many times experience tries to say it’s fighting a losing battle.”

— Cara McKenna

24. “He gets off on being rough and domineering and cruel, but it’s not who he is.”

— Cara McKenna

25. “He watched her screen, her spell-checker halting at such spurious entries as “fuckwitism” and “Caliguliberal”.”

— Cara McKenna

26. “Shane knew this wasn’t love, at least not any kind of love that extended beyond the desires of two selfish bodies. No future, only fleeting pleasure. This was addiction, plain and simple... irresistible need coupled with painful consequences and regret, moments of pure happiness like islands, spread out in a thrashing sea of insecurity and interminable waiting.”

— Cara McKenna

27. “Call me traditional, but the whole manscaping trend turns me right off.”

— Cara McKenna

28. “I’d rather be Rizzo than Sandy, no question. Rizzo found love without changing a thing about herself. Sandy had to dress like a skank and get that horrible perm and take up smoking.”

— Cara McKenna

29. “Her armor didn’t snap on this time. Instead she felt as if her skin was falling away, leaving her a tangle of exposed nerves and brittle bones.”

— Cara McKenna

30. “When his chest brushed hers she wrapped her arms around his back, grateful for his strength. Grateful he might be in her corner when she decided she was ready to learn how to be strong again herself.”

— Cara McKenna

31. “Why did the cruelest words have the sharpest barbs? Why did they stick, while the kind ones fell away so quickly?”

— Cara McKenna

32. “And just remember that sadness is like rain. Keep reminding yourself it’ll pass.”

— Cara McKenna

33. “Like I didn’t know full well that the people who grate on us the worst are always the clearest reflections of our own weaknesses.”

— Cara McKenna

34. “I just want to feel needed by somebody who deserves whatever I got to offer.”

— Cara McKenna

35. “If I get pulled over on the short drive between here and my house I’ll have to say, “I had only two beers in two hours, officer, but then I made out with a lumberjack. You know how it is.”

— Cara McKenna