“Lux’s frequent forged excuses from phys. ed. She always used the same method, faking the rigid t’s and b’s of her mother’s signature and then, to distinguish her own handwriting, penning her signature, Lux Lisbon, below, the two beseeching L’s reaching out for each other over the ditch of the u and barbed-wire x.”

“She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.”

“On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.”

“Lux spent the ride dialing the radio for her favorite song. "It makes me crazy," she said. "You know they're playing it somewhere, but you have to find it.”

“All sixteen mentioned her jutting ribs, the insubstantiality of her thighs, and one, who went up to the roof with Lux during a warm winter rain, told us how the basins of her collarbones collected water.”

“She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else.”

“But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.”