“Girls have all the same parts, basically, and so much of how they look depends on the attitude, expectations, and obsessions of those who are looking at them.”

“So in our own poor hides and from our miserable comrades we learn the nature of satiety. Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.”

“All of them are the same type; girls with overprocessed hair and too much makeup and way too much access to Daddy’s credit cards. Girls who, if you took away the designer labels, hair dye and cover-up, wouldn’t be more than average-looking, but with all that stuff look too plastic to be pretty.”

“How can a girl look so innocent and so hot at the same time?”

“Girls like Caroline and Lily are constantly performing, as much for the Good Girl they think they should be as for the adults and peers who look on. They have spent their lives growing internally dependent on external rewards: pats on the back A's, club presidencies, Most Valuable Player trophies. They become more concerned with how they appear and should be than who they are What other think and feel replaces what is true for them.”

“No matter what your reality looks like, you're the girl I'm in love with today, and the same girl I'll be in love with tomorrow and all the days after that. Not just because of who you are, but because of who you were.It's all part of your story, Em. And I want to be a part of your story, too.”