“I understood the word 'swoon'. It felt that way, like 'sweep' and 'moon' and 'woo', all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.”

“I drove in last night,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep, it was too hot. So I went outside. I was feeling melancholy. Then I danced with a beautiful girl, and I felt better. What's your story?”

“It had never occurred to me that I could do something without permission. 'May I' was a way of life for a girl like me.”

“I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.”

“I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.”

“I loved him like a fever. Then he left. He kicked through love like it was dust and he kept on walking.”

“Truth, justice...I always thought they were absolutes, like God. And Mom. And apple pie.But you could make apple pie from Ritz crackers. You could make cakes without sugar. We learned how to fake things, during the war.”