“Leaning her silly, beautiful, drunken head on my shoulder, she said, "Oh, Esther, I don't want to be a feminist. I don't enjoy it. It's no fun.""I know," I said. "I don't either." People think you decide to be a "radical," for God's sake, like deciding to be a librarian or a ship's chandler. You "make up your mind," you "commit yourself" (sounds like a mental hospital, doesn't it?).I said Don't worry, we could be buried together and have engraved on our tombstone the awful truth, which some day somebody will understand:WE WUZ PUSHED.”

“I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you are," I said shyly. "I just don't want to mess up, and you're much better at this sort of thing than I am.""Don't worry. You'll enjoy playing along. You'll have to be haughty, and I'll have to act beaten down, when we're in public.""That sounds kind of fun." I said."Just don't forget that it's a ruse, love," he said. "Because once we're outside the walls again, you'll be entirely in my power. And I'd hate to have to spank you.”

“My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?""I don't mind at all" I said.It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.”

“I wish I worried about my uncle's opinions, and had problems to work out with my mom. Hell, I'd settle for knowing what her voice sounded like." I put a hand on her shoulder. "Trite but true—you don't know what you have until it's gone. People change. The world changes. And sooner or later you lose people you care about. If you don't mind some advice from someone who doesn't know much about families, I can tell you this: Don't take yours for granted. It might feel like all of them will always be there. But they won't.”

“Alex, I don't want to date you. I don't want you to be my girlfriend. I don't want us to be together for just a little while. I want you forever. I want us to look at each other, and say we love each other, and decide to be together forever. Alex...I want to spend our lives together. If we ever decided we want to have kids, I want it to be me and you.”

“You have to be quiet," I said. "We don't want to wake up the ladies. I don't think I want 'em to see me all drunk like this.""It's not really me we have to worry about, Dino.""Shit, am I too loud?""Yes. Shut up.”