“He wanted to believe that I was a good person and I wanted to believe that he was just another asshole.”

“Despite everything that life had shown me, I always believed in love: I wanted someone to take me away from these simple feelings I knew.”

“I was just another stupid girl waiting for Prince Charming to give me true love's first kiss, and I hated myself for it.”

“I never wanted to fall in love. Only stupid girls compromised themselves that way, and I was too smart to sell myself short.”

“I had to assume the worst about people because I knew firsthand what horrible things they were capable of.”

“The ferocity of her passion was what he'd been waiting for night after torturous night. He wanted her to hunger the way he hungered. To need like he needed.”

“Several notes were missing. They had always been missing, except for two that I had levered out with a poker when three...The anticipated thrill of a missing G or an E Flat was like a good joke, told again and again, always fresh. I believe that my present feeling for silences and emptinesses dates from those sing-songs, the awaited non-note on the beat.”