“She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.”

“She thought of something her mother had told her when she'd finally broken up with one of her most dysfunctional boyfriends. When a man tells you he's going to hurt you, believe it. They always warn you and they're always right.”

“Crippled things are always more beautiful. It's the flaw that brings out beauty.”

“You have a skill. You can do something no one else can,” Barron says. “Seriously. You know what’s good about that? It’s valuable. As in you can trade it for goods or services. Or money. Remember when I said it was wasted on you? I was so right.”

“She didn't know how much she'd been hoping that he still loved her, until she felt how much it hurt to realize he didn't.”

“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”

“It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about.”