“I wanted this day, the perfect buttery sun like peach ice cream, the speed, the satin leather of the car seat, the fair. Forbidden fruit, a day like no other. ”

“Raymond, through some curious alchemy of his own, had come really to think a divorce was something you could win, as opposed to a situation in which the wounded attempt to contain loss. She once said to her friend Annie, “It’s like fighting over who gets the litterbox after the cat is dead. Raymond has forgotten we ever had a cat; he actually wants the litterbox. Full.” She said Annie had laughed and then Martha cried”

“I don't suppose you have to believe in ghosts to know that we are all haunted, all of us, by things we can see and feel and guess at, and many more things that we can't.”

“You're never too old to keep failing your children, are you? Why weren't we told this was a life sentence?”

“Have you ever spent days and days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telepone ice cream? Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all.”

“I stared at the room full of caskets on display-their lids gaping open like hungry mouths, waiting to swallow up the newly departed. I decided I'd much rather exit this world in a crackle of flames and a swirl of smoke through my ribs than be cooped up for all eternity in a dark box surrounded by puffy white satin.”

“I wanted sex to feel the way it had felt with him. Wild. Uninhibited. A perfect fit, perfect chemistry.”