“While some women had wing girls for club hopping, Sal had something far more important - a best friend who could run patient interference better than most linebackers.”

“But seriously, what were his parents thinking? Naming their son Richard Updike? Did they want him to get beaten up his entire adolescence?”

“A good friend will bail you out of jail.A best friend will be sitting next to youSaying, 'Damn. We fucked up.”

“Ned said "Nancy Drew is the best girl detective in the whole world!""Don't you believe him," Nancy said quickly. "I have solved some mysteries, I'll admit, and I enjoy it, but I'm sure there are many other girls who could do the same.”

“Women, I believe, search for fellow beings who have faced similar struggles, conveyed them in ways a reader can transform into her own life, confirmed desires the reader had hardly acknowledge--desires that now seem possible. Women catch courage from the women whose lives and writings they read, and women call the bearer of that courage friend. [p. 138]”

“Why did people run around in random directions when shooting started instead of literally hitting the deck to stay out of the line of fire? How stupid could you get?”

“She knew she couldn’t escape unscathed, and the trauma would take her a long time to get past. And she might never fully heal mentally.There was no denying the fact, though, that everything had changed for her. To know what to expect wasn’t the same as actually living it.”