“Oh, where is the Fairy Godmother of explanations when you need her?”

“When you're young your mother shields you from the world because she thinks you're too young to understand, and when she's old you shield her because she's too old to understand - or to have any more understanding inflicted upon her. The curve of life goes: want to know, know, don't want to know.”

“Children are the proof we've been here . . . they're where we go to when we die. They're the best thing and the most impossible thing, but there's nothing else . . . Life is a riddle and they are the answer. If there's any answer, it has to be them.”

“Being your slave, what should I do but tendUpon the hours and times of your desire?I have no precious time at all to spend,Nor services to do till you require.Nor dare I question with my jealous thoughtWhere you may be or your affairs suppose,But like a sad slave stay and think of noughtSave where you are, how happy you make those.”

“You learned that if you're tired enough, you can sleep sitting up. That the unendurable is perfectly endurable if you just take it a minute at a time, and when the alternative is no more minutes ever...”

“My mother thinks some disaster has happened if I don't return a phone call from her within twenty-four hours. It's hard to explain that the only chance to return the call will be when a disaster ISN'T happening, stormy being the prevailing climate with surprise outbreaks of calm.”

“The thing about teen idol," Louisa is saying, "is he morphs through time. The boys' faces and names change, but the emotional need they fulfill, well, that never changes.”