“The thing you had had and loved and taken for granted caught up with you all at once and for no sensible reason suddenly cost more than you could afford.”

“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.”

“Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good about yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could flip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct ad had nothing at all to give.”

“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)”

“Why not celebrate what you had had rather than spend your time mourning its passing? Therecould be joy in things that ended.”

“How many times could you give up on someone you loved?”

“Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.”