"Maybe you ought to take a break," he suggested. "Maybe take a long, leisurely bubble bath or something."
"Who has time for that?" Savannah grumbled. "This place isn't going to get fixed up by itself.
He tucked a finger under her chin. "When you start saying things like that, it's exactly the time when you need a break the most."

"Every human has the capacity to love," he said with such confidence that her heart surged with hope. "But a person's ability to love is only equal to his or her openness in receiving it."

"I'll do whatever it takes to have you in my life."

"I may not believe in Santa, but I believe in safe sex."

She was running away, but you couldn't run from something that was inside you.

"Say what? Did I just hear that you think I'm fat? 'Cause that better not be the case on account of then I'd have to pound you into something looks like a hamburger pattie."

"You keep talking like that and I'm gonna come in your office and sit on you and squish you into nothing but a ugly grease spot." Lula said.

"Stop," I said. "Don't come any closer. The answer is no."
His brown eyes locked onto me. "I didn't ask a question."
"You were going to."
"True."

He was so smug with his assessment of me that I was surprised he didn't suffocate under all that arrogance.

I wasn't used to that kind of affection. I shied away from it in every other part of my life, but coming from him I soaked it up like rain on arid ground.

When we were little, Alice used to ask Mom if we were rich. She always said we were rich in all the things that matter. I need to remember she's right.

Kelsey said, "Honey, right now you look like someone's adorable little sister. No guy wants to screw his little sister, And if he does, you don't want to be near him

When he was gone, Devon's smile fell. Taking her seat in class , she realized that her face actually hurt. As if the muscles in her cheeks and around her eyes weren't strong enough anymore to hold something as heavy as a smile.

What could I have done differently? her mom had asked.
Could her mom have done something differently? Was she capable of being a different sort of person? A sort of person who Devon could talk to about important things, about scary things? Grown-up things, even? A person who Devon could depend upon?

Devon watches all of this drama unfolding in front of her, the huge dramatic production that is her mom. It always ends the same way for Devon, the clash of conflicted emotions-feelings of guilt and annoyance, anger and sadness. Helplessness.

Her mom had deserted Devon when she'd needed her most.

You have to look like a winner to be a winner.

...You know, if you put a pot of margarine on the lawn, not a single insect will touch it because it doesn't recognize it as food...

Tyrone shook his head. "You don't want to mess with that man. He'll tie you up in court for years. His picture is right in the dictionary, beside the word nightmare."

This was one way to die, Liv thought, as she was certain she felt her ribs cracking under the strain of the boning of the corset, but perhaps it was the best way to go, smothered to death in her best friend's wedding dress.