“She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.”

“It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over. Had I ever really told her that?”

“What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want--someone to notice she was there.”

“We have all heard what we wanted to hear! Truth that sounds right to our ears!”

“She wanted that—what Sed and Jessica had. And she wanted it with Jace.”

“Also: people pretended not to want what they wanted. Pretending tried to hide the will. That was the secret of adult life, the undisclosed motor of the whole thing. People wanted what they wanted. They did what they could to get it. It wasn't complicated. Kenny knew that was the last step he needed to take before he could be an adult: he had to learn what he wanted, then had to learn to want what he wanted.”