“I had been wrong when I said Liza McCullen wasn't beautiful: when she smiled she was stunning.”

“When I learned of Aunt Dimity's death, I was stunned. Not because she was dead, but because I had never known she'd been alive.”

“Rum and Coke, please," she told the bartender.Maybe that was why Liza and Bonnie never had guy trouble: great hair. She looked at Liza, racehorse-thin in purple zippered leather...Okay it wasn't just the hair. If she jammed herself into liza's dress, she'd look like Barney's slut cousin."Diet Coke," she told the bartender.”

“Hao Kan," I said gently, quietly, firmly as if it was a pact between the two of us. She blinked. I wasn't sure if she understood. Or if she believed she was beautiful. So I pointed at her and then to me. And I repeated with utter conviction, "Hao Kan." Those words, my pronouncement, won me the girl's slow nod. I nodded back. And when she smiled, wide and open, I tell you, there was nothing more beautiful that that.”

“She was grinning and she should have been pretty when she grinned. She had good white teeth and a lovely, delicate mouth. But something always went wrong with Denise's smile. There was always something manic in it.”

“She was my destination. I was always on the way to Lena, even when I wasn't. Even when she wasn't on her way to me.”