“She didn't know a lot about politics – yet – but she'd learned enough in her history classes to know politics could always be counted on to make a bad situation worse.”

“But...as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.”

“It was bad enough to see friendship and love in terms of politics. But seeing it in terms of business was even worse.”

“Long ago she'd learned that facing reality was inevitable. She could skulk about, trying to avoid it or pretending it wasn't there. But in the end, reality always found her. And its finding her seemed a harsher blow than if she'd faced the situation straight on from the very start.”

“Admittedly, there was a lot she still didn't know about him, but she did know this: He completed her in a way that she'd never thought possible. Knowledge isn't everything, she told herself, and she knew then that, in Nana's words, he was the toast to her butter.”

“The town could not talk, and would not listen. "How'd you like to hear about the war?" he might have asked, but the place could only blink and shrug. It had no memory, therefore no guilt. The taxes got paid and the votes got counted and the agencies of government did their work briskly and politely. It was a brisk, polite town. It did not know shit about shit, and did not care to know. ”