“When does the part where I become a bigger person kick in?”

“When I was in college, the board game RISK was popular for a while. We’d get stoned and I’d stare at the little plastic pieces moving across the territories and get utterly confused about allies and enemies, arguing that nothing could be that black and white, complicating the whole notion of the game. But I understand that estrogen is my enemy now, the very thing that made me big-busted and fertile and a terrific nurser, has turned on me, inside my milk ducts where my body incubated nourishment that made my babies pink cheeked and roly-poly thighed. It’s all so twisted and ironic and confusing. Tamoxifen, a hero and a hazard, my breasts, a giver and taker of life, and I, the protagonist and the antagonist in this story”

“I want to be brave. I want to be big. I want to be gracious and cool. I want to be the Audrey Hepburn of cancer. ”

“I’ll start in the middle: Winter 2006:I’m sitting topless in the oncologist’s office on Valentine’s Day. Cancer is a bitch. It doesn’t give a shit about holidays.”

“...Maybe it was just the perfect realization to all ones' dreams....where a magic elixir could heal you and make you strong, where men could make roses bloom with the single touch of a thumb, and where the bigger women were, so much the better.”

“I know it is possible to feel this way about other people," I began, pointing to my heart, "I know that there are a lot of ways to love and that each person I date will bring out a different part of me and I will love them all differently. But I always like how I liked you the best.”

“Sometimes it's possible to see misfortune coming and prepare for it, I guess, but most of the time, when a person disappears, it's as unexpected and shocking as hail in the middle of June.”