Ann Brashares

“Lena was an introvert. She knew she had trouble connecting with people. She always felt like her looks were fake bait, seeming to offer a bridge to people, which she couldn't easily cross.”

“The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the Pants --- like picking your nose.”

“The summers before that are a blur of baby oil and Sun-In and hating our bodies (I got big breasts; Tibby got no breasts) at the Rockwood public swimming pool.”

“Yeah. You know what I think?"What?" So intense was Tibby, she had practically shoved the phone into her ear cavity.She has big boobies.”

“In a flash of wonderment she saw firm, continuous ground under her feet, stretching from back then to right now and on and on as far as her eyes could take her.”

“Polly was pretty good at dieting, all right, but she was beginning to wonder whether you ever lost the parts of your self that you wanted to lose.”

“I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her ; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me.”

“Everything I ever said to you was true and is true.”

“I mean putting yourself out there in the way of overwhelming happiness and knowing you're also putting yourself in the way of terrible harm. I'm scared to be this happy. I'm scared to be this extreme.”

“She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.”

“Bridget saw chaos.”

“Carmen didn't like change, and she certainly didn't like endings.”

“I tell myself your spirits were down the day you wrote. You're fine and we're fine. I hope it's true.”

“She wasn't as destructive as Bee. She had never been as dramatic. Rather, she'd slipped carefully, stealthily away from her ghosts.”

“The word friends doesn't seem to stretch big enough to describe how we feel about each other. We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops.”

“It was funny to hear her voice aloud. Her thoughts and perceptions usually existed so deep inside her, they rarely made it to the surface without a deliberate effort.”

“Grandma kept turning around in the front seat of their old Fiat saying, "Look at you girls! On, Lena, you are a beauty!"Lena seriously wished she would stop saying that, because it was irritating, and besides, how was cranky Effie supposed to feel?”

“Once Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.”

“My butt has specific requirements for pants.”

“Some things have to be believed to be seen. -Ralph Hodgson”

“Life isn't just fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all. -William Goldman”

“When she is happy, she can't stop talking, when she is sad she doesn't say a word.”

“Forget Jack, I'm in love with the cold, dirt floor.”

“Please don't judge me too much until you are older and know more things. (Spoken from mother to daughter)”

“Luck never gives; it lends.”

“As the three of them walked home from the trees, nobody needed to say it, but Ama knew. They had questioned their friendship. They had searched and wondered, looking for a sign. And all along they'd had their trees. You couldn't wear them. You couldn't pass them around. They offered no fashion advantage. But they had roots. They lived.”

“She was never going to be the kind of person who didn't stick out in all directions. To want it was the same as hating herself. That was the truth. She breathed those words. She could have repeated them a hundred times and they wouldn't have hurt any worse. Reality was stubborn for sure, but it was large and it had possibilities. It was a sweet relief when you let it come.”

“Maybe we tried so hard to be like the Sisterhood because it was easy for them and we wanted it to be easy for us. Because they were lucky and we wanted to be lucky too. They had wonder, and we didn't have any. We looked for the magic, but we didn't fine it. We waited for the magic, but it didn't find us.”

“There are moments in your life when the big pieces slide and shift. Sometimes the big changes dong happen gradually but all at once. That's how it was for us. That was the day we discovered that friends can do things for you that your parents can't.”

“she never showed girly weaknesses like cellulite or crushes. she never lingered on injustices committed against her.”

“She wanted him to see all of her and also none of her. She wanted him to be dazzled by the bits and blinded by the whole. She wanted him to see her whole and not in pieces. She had hopes that were hard to satisfy.”

“It wasn't just that Lucy wanted to help him. She wasn't as selfless as that. She was madly attracted to him. She was attracted to all of the normal things and the weird things, too, like the back of his neck and his thumbs on the edge of his desk and the way his hair stuck out on one side like a little wing over his ear. She caught his smell once, and it made her dizzy. She couldn't fall asleep that night.”

“Marnie loved her better and more honestly than anyone else in the world, with the possible exception of her mother, who loved her intensely if not honestly.”

“Every life I start with her, my original sin. I know myself through her.”

“You know what the secret is? It's so simple. We love one another. We're nice to one another. Do you know how rare that is? - Carmen”

“Maybe the truth is there's a little bit of loser in all of us you know, being happy isn't having everything in your life being perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things. Making those count more then the bad stuff. Maybe we just get through it and that's all we can ask for.”

“Women always seemed to bring the size they wished they were to the fitting room, rather than the size that would actually fit.”

“Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks. The traffic signal that said walk the second you got there, that happened to every person in the course of a day.”

“I love you, I'll never stop.”

“Tibby's wish would be to hold on to the idea of love even in the face of darkest doubt. Because that was the way in which she failed. Not once, but again and again.”

“Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.”

“Ask me anything, Bailey challenged.What are you scared of? The question got out of Tibby's mouth before she meant to ask it. Bailey thought. I'm afriad of time, she answered. She was brave, unflinching in the big Cyclops eye of the camera. There was nothing prissy or self-conscious about Bailey. I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time, she clarified. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgments and mistakes that eerybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies. Tibby looked at her in disbelief. She was struck by this new side of Bailey, this philosophical-beyond-her-years Bailey. Did cancer make you wise? Did those chemicals and X rays supercharge her twelve-year-old brain?”

“Lena was suspicious of many things. But she had earned her suspicions about boys. Lena knew boys. They never looked beyond your looks. They pretended to be your friend to get you to trust them, and as soon as you trusted them, they went in for the grope. They pretended to want to work on a history project or volunteer on your blood drive committee to get your attention. But as soon as they got it through their skulls that you didn't want to go out with them, they suddenly weren't interested in time lines or dire blood shortages. Worst of all, on occasion they even went out with one of your best friends to get close to you, and broke that same best friend's heart when the truth came out. Lean preferred plain guys to cute ones, but even the plain ones disappointed her.”

“She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.”

“She was back on the ground, looking down at the bugs rather than up at the sky.”

“Greta was squinting at the Pants. "Are those yours?" she asked.Bridget nodded."Would you like me to wash 'em for you? A little bleach would clean that whole mess right off them."Bridget looked aghast. "No! No, thank you" she cradled them protectively. "I like them how they are."Greta clucked and shook her head. "To each, her own," she muttered.You have no magic in you, Bridget thought.”

“She had willed her heart to stay small and contained, but it wouldn’t be. Oh, well.”

“During intermission she peeked out at the theater, watching it refill. When it was almost full and the lights blinked on and off, she saw three people file in through the center door and her breath caught. Time lapsed as they walked down the center aisle: three teenage girls all in a row.They were so big, so bright, so beautiful, so magnificent to Carmen’s eyes that she thought she was imagining them. They were like goddesses, like Titans. She was so proud of them! They were benevolent and they were righteous. Now, these were friends.”

“Different people were good at different things, Lena mused. Lena was good at writing thank-you notes, for instance, and Effie was good at being happy.”

“Tibby sat on the outside of a group of kids in the film program. There was a lot of dark clothing and heavy footwear, and quite a few piercings glinting in sunlight. They had invited her to sit with them while they all finished up their lunches before film seminar. Tibby knew that they had invited her largely because she had a ring in her nose. This bugged her almost as much as when people excluded her because she had a ring in her nose.”