“My swimming cap was really sprouting leaks these days. The thing is, you could patch over the holes, but it would never be the same. Like my love life.”

“Shopping is really complicated if you are a girl.”

“Having friends was really important, wasn't it? Even if sometimes they did stuff which upset you?”

“I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying to break through to what is underneath or I am dead. I can feel the surface trembling—it seems ready to give but it never does. I am uninterested in current events. How can I justify this? How can I explain it? I don't want to have the same vocabulary I've always had. I want something richer, broader, more penetrating and powerful.”

“There are words in my life that I wish I'd never said. I wish I'd never told my wife that I loved her, because then I had to line up all my actions with those words. I had to always act like that was true. And those three words, I love you, should never be used if you don't mean them. My lying has meant I will never get to use them on anyone else. I went against my own truth, my own heart, and there is really no coming back from that.”

“I wasn’t about to tell him that I never said anything to anyone who teased me. I just went along with it like it was my joke too. I wanted everyone to like me…”

“I think it's because he likes you.' 'Well, that's too bad. I've given up that kind of thing.' 'What kind of thing?' 'Love, dating, the inevitable ensuing heartbreak.”