“After I’d told her – the mall, the taxi, Cross stroking my hair – she said, ‘Did he kiss you?’‘John and Martin totally would have seen that,’ I said, and as I felt myself implying the circumstances had prevented our kissing, I thought maybe this was why you told stories to other people – for how their possibilities enlarged in the retelling.”

“I couldn’t tell them about Cross, I thought. I couldn’t tell them because Dede liked him and because she wouldn’t believe or understand it, and I couldn’t tell them because I myself was unsure what there was to believe or understand. It wasn’t like he’d kissed me, or made any declarations. What could I claim? For years and years, I felt this way, not just about Cross but about other guys – if they didn’t kiss you, it didn’t mean anything. Their interest in you had been so negligible as, perhaps, to have all been in your head.”

“I heard Gillian say, with a laugh, “At this point, does anyone expect the liberals not to be total hypocrites?” She was oblivious to the possibility that perhaps not everyone present shared her views, and I thought, You’re sixteen. How can you already be a Republican?”

“I did not care if Ella went to Princeton, if she was exceptionally pretty, if she grew up to marry a rich man, or really if she married at all - there were many incarnations of her I felt confident I could embrace, a hippie or a housewife or a career woman. But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good luck and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. Above all, I wanted my daughter to understand that many people were guided by bitterness and that it was best to avoid these individuals - their moods and behavior were a hornet's nest you had no possible reason to do anything other than bypass and ignore.”

“...but then I think how I grew sick of kissing him. How can you spend your life with a person you're sick of kissing?”

“This possibility was not flattering to me; it was terrifying. There were other things a guy could think I was, and he wouldn't be entirely wrong - nice, or loyal, or maybe interesting. Not that I was always any of those thing, but in certain situations, it was conceivable. But to be seen as pretty was to be fundamentally misunderstood. First of all, I wasn't pretty, and on top of that I didn't take care of myself like a pretty girl did; I wasn't even one of the unpretty girls who passes as pretty through effort and association. If a guy believed my value to lie in my looks, it meant either that he'd somehow been mislead and would eventually be disappointed, or that he had very low standards.”

“If a man wants to be romantically involved with you, he tries to kiss you. That's the entire story, and if he doesn't kiss you, there is never a reason to wait around for him.”