“How could a person have and do all these stupid things--clip coupons and double lock the front door--and then one day just cease to exist?”

“The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.”

“She thought about him all the time - not so much about Doug the individual, but rather about the nature of love, and the shock of learning how quickly it could disappear.”

“All of it remained, a constant reminder: He existed, then he didn't. The world spins on, indifferent to the mess.”

“And then there were the things Sally knew her mother would have loved. Those, too, made it easy to imagine how she might come back to life, since nothing good seemed quite real without her there to approve of it.”

“If things had been different, she would be in Carolyn's place right now. She didn't want that sort of existence, but there was something so attractive about the security of feeling like you had stopped moving toward your life, and actually arrived.”

“We don't always do the things our parents want us to do, but it is their mistake if they can't find a way to love us anyway.”