“My mother had always taught me to write about my feelings instead of sharing really personal things with others, so I spent many evenings writing in my diary, eating everything in the kitchen and waiting for Mr. Wrong to call.”

“When you eat a carrot that is nothing but carrot it zooms through your system as a carrot. When you eat a piece of mass-produced carrot cake that contains 32 ingredients, your metabolism screeches to a halt while your body tries to figure out what all those things are that you just swallowed, and what it is supposed to do with them. Therefore, the problem isn’t “fat”, its piles of excess ingredients your body’s stacked on shelves and vowed to sort out later.”

“Food, love, career, and mothers, the four major guilt groups.”

“Each of us wages a private battle each day between the grand fantasies we have for ourselves and what actually happens.”

“A child’s bond to her mother cannot be understated, and my bond with Helen was a ragged, baffling, disheartening, chaotic mess. I felt crazy, often, around my own mother. I grew up questioning what was normal, asking what reality was and wasn’t, and not trusting the outcome of different situations. She scared me and I couldn’t predict her behavior, so I was often off-kilter and worried.”

“She's not my type,' Carter says.'So what is your type?''Tall, skinny, black hair, blue eyes, freckly nose. Blue tinsel wig and snowflakes optional.''Skinny?' I squeal.'Definitely. Pretending to be shy, sensible and stand-offish when really you're mad about me.''You sure about that?''No, but I'm hoping.”

“Lance told me his father didn’t think much of him. “He wishes I was better. More better. At everything. I don’t do anything right, you know, Stevie. Nothing.” He said this matter-of-factly. He believed it as truth. Polly told me her father never said anything nice to her, but she kept trying as hard as she could to make him pay her some attention. “He always says, ‘Don’t get fat as your mother has,’ but I don’t think Mom’s fat at all, but I try not to eat much, but he keeps saying it to me. Do you think I’m fat, Stevie? When my hair is messy do you think I look like a stray...”