“My mother always told me I wouldn't amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, 'Just wait.”

“Judy, you don't know nothin' about the South. You don't even know the difference between the North and the South.'I said, 'Oh yes I do. In the North, there's a cutoff age for sleeping with your parents.”

“Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I just told my mother I want a bra. Please help me grow God. You know where.”

“I made promises to you that I'm not sure I can keep. None of it has anything to do with you. It's just that I don't know what to do now. You must be thinking what a rotten person I am. Well, believe me, I'm thinking the same thing. I don't know how this happened or why. Maybe I can get over it. Do you think you can wait—because I don't want you to stop loving me. I keep remembering us and how it was. I don't want to hurt you … not ever …”

“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 like one hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain and things that are pink. I hate pimples, baked potatoes, when my mother's mad, and religious holidays.”

“Like my mother said, you can't go back to holding hands”