“What every girl dreams of when she's dumped is - that the guy will someday feel regrest and come back and tell her all about it. And the beauty of it is you have no regrets whatsoever.”

“Young girls today are very mistaken to be thinking that their sense of self-worth and their acknowledgment of their beauty depends on whether a man will give that to them or not. Such naïveté! And so what will happen when the man changes his mind about her? Tells her she's not beautiful enough? That she's not good enough? Cheats on her? Leaves her? Then what happens? She will lose all her self-worth, she will think she is not good enough, she is not beautiful enough, because all of those feelings depended on the man in the first place! And along with the loss of the man, it will all be lost as well! Mothers, teach your daughters better. It pains me to see such naive innocence right under my nose! Such naïveté does no good for any girl. It is better for a girl to be worldly-wise and have street-smarts! That's what a girl needs to have in life! Not wide-eyed delusional innocence! The sense of self-worth and acknowledgment of being beautiful must not come from a man, it must come from inside the woman herself, men will come and men will go and their coming and going must not take an effect on the woman's sense of worth and beauty.”

“I know about love. I know about wanting and dreaming and wishing with every piece of your soul. I know enough to recognize the parts that are real and the parts that are only fantasy.' ... 'Like when she cries and my heart tears into little shreds and all I can think about is making her forget the source of her saddness.' ... 'Thats real.' ... 'And fantisy?' 'Believing she might ever feel the same way.' ... 'Why didn't you tell her? The girl you love. Why didn't you tell her how you feel?' ... 'Because,' ... 'she doesn't want to know.”

“She had a dream about a tattoo. This was a pleasant dream. She was walking away and she had the most beautiful tattoo. It covered her shoulders, her back, the back of her legs. It was unspeakably fine.”

“That guy with the silver hair, he’s your dad, right?” Amber questioned, surveying the scene. “Yes,” I said, reluctant to say anything but, considering what was happening, figured was the least of my worries. “Ooo la la. He’s, like, totally diesel. Look at those arms.” She went on, admiring my dad to a sickening degree. “All right, jailbait, back off. It’s practically incest.”She sucked air through her teeth. “I know,” she said regretfully. “But a girl can dream. And I have a feeling he’s going to be starring in a lot of them.”

“When I see a beautiful shell like that I can't help feeling a regret about what's inside it.”