“Actually that’s my secret — I can’t even talk about you to anybody because I don’t want any more people to know how wonderful you are.”

“I can’t tell you just how wonderful she is. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want any one to know.”

“I want you so attached you can’t imagine a life without me. I don’t give a fuck if that’s selfish, that’s what I want because, Abby, you must know, I already can’t imagine life without you.”

“And that’s my problem. You can’t rely on anybody being around for you, because things change. Specifically, people die, or something comes up in their life, which you find out is actually quite separate to you.”

“You know, one of the interesting things you find about writing fiction is that any fiction you write has to be political. Otherwise, it goes into the realm of fantasy. So like, if you write about a woman in America in 1910, if you don’t write that she can’t really control her property, that she can’t—doesn’t have any say over her children, that she can’t vote—if you don’t put that in it, then it’s a fantasy. Like, well, how is her life informed? That’s true about everybody. If you write about black people, you write about white men, I mean, it has to be political. A lot of people don’t realize that, it seems.”

“You. I want you and I don’t want to be a luxury. I want you to need me. I want you to not be able to concentrate because you’re thinking about me. I want you to reach for your phone because you thought of something you have to share with me. I want you to not even be able to breathe at the thought of never seeing me again, because that’s how I feel about you, Paige. I want to be a necessity.”