“In fact, her whole life, she'd done her absolute best to do the right thing. It was wonderful to be wildly, romantically in love at sixteen. But life wasn't romantic”

“She'd never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope, or kissed a boy whose name she didn't know, and yet in the last few days, she'd done all these things.”

“Oh, how wonderfully romantic of you. Romantics are really only in love with themselves.”

“Romantic love is over-rated but that's what we want in life, someone who love us in a romantic way.”

“When was the last time she'd actually had a relationship based on reality, instead of some completely invented fantasy she'd written in her head? In her stupid, silly, romantic head.”

“I couldn't help but think of my mother's most life-altering mistake. Silly and romantic, getting married fresh out of high school to a man she barely knew, then producing me a year later. She'd always promised me that she had no regrets, that I was the best gift hr life had ever given her.”