“They have started to arrive. An endless cascade of luxuriously quilted envelopes, thumping onto the doormat. The wedding invitations.”

“Love is art, not truth. It's like painting a scenery.' These are the things one takes from mothers. Once they die, of course, you get the strand of pearls, the blue quilt, some of the original wedding gifts - a tray shellacked with the invitation, an old rusted toaster - but the touches and the words and the moaning the night she dies, these are what you seize, save, carry around in little invisible envelopes, opening them up quickly, like a carnival huckster, giving the world a peek. They will not stay quiet. No matter how you try.”

“I have found luxury in leadership, it starts with investment.”

“A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.”

“She saw death as just another wedding she wasn't invited to.”

“And love is for victims." She shoved her helmet onto her head. "And like you said, I don't have that luxury anymore.”