“...our familiar features rinsed in weird adulthood.”

“They sat in silence. Feathers, Phoebe thought, searching in vain for some moment of her own that could rival the beauty and mystery of Faith's act. She felt a disappointment so familiar it was almost a comfort.”

“You kneel beside her, breathing the familiar smell of Sasha's sleep, whispering into her ear some mix of I'm sorry and I will never leave you, I'll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life, until the water pressing my shoulders and chest crushes me awake and I hear Sasha screaming into my face: Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“skin-that smooth plump sweetly fragrant sac upon which life scrawls the record of our failures and exhaustion”

“Suddenly I'm scared.That the solar panels were a time machine.That I'm a grown-up woman coming back to this place after many years.That my parents are gone, and our house isn't ours anymore.It's a broken down ruin with no one in it.Living here all together was so sweet.Even when we fought.It felt like it would never end. I'll always miss it.”

“I’m like America ” he said. Stephanie swung around to look at him unnerved. “What are you talking about ” she said. “Are you off your meds ” “Our hands are dirty ” Jules said.”

“I wonder what Proust would have made of our present-day locus of collective fantasy, the Internet. I’m guessing he would have seized on its wistful aspect, pointing out gently and with wry humor that much of what beguiles us is the act of reaching for what isn’t there.”