“She's so thin she's either dying or rich.”

“Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.”

“With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out."Long-term or short-term?" she asks.Both."Long-term," she says, "we're all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we're going to live happily ever after."Really?"Really," she says. "So don't sweat it.”

“If she was going to die, Marla didn't want to know about it.”

“People die', she says. 'People tear down houses. But furniture, fine, beautiful furniture, it just goes on and on, surviving everything.' She says, 'Armoires are the cockroaches of our culture.”

“They assume she was once gorgeously beautiful. Because now she looks so—bad. ”

“Marla doesn't have testicular cancer. Marla doesn't have tuberculosis. She isn't dying. Okay in that brain brain-food philosophy way, we're all dying, but Marla isn't dying the way Chloe was dying.”