“Sometimes you need to make a mess.-Loretta, the Rollinses' hosekeeper”

“It was probably good you couldn't flip the love switch because sometimes it was what you needed even if you didn't want it.”

“Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself. ... As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.”

“You could feel things or you could find a way to shut down. But once you were feeling things, you couldn’t decide exactly what to feel. That was the trouble with letting them in at all. They made a mess of the place.”

“It was frustrating when people loved you and took an interest in you and sometimes worried about you and personally cared what you did with yourself. Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good bout yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could clip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct and had nothing at all to give." (Lena, 194)”

“You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”

“Sometimes you couldn’t face the sadness of being forgotten until you felt the comfort of being remembered again.”