“It's so easy to lie. What’s even worse is how we cling to those lies. We beg for the illusion so we don’t have to face the truth, don’t have to feel alone.”

“It's often only in the lies we refuse to speak that any truth can be heard at all.”

“I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heart beating, solid and sure.....he reads me so well. He's known about my emotional empathy since we were children. Nothing disturbs him...Few can lie to me... I don't know the truth, only that there is a lie. It takes a scrupulously honest man to love me. That's my Sean. We learned to trust each other completely before we were old enough to have learned suspicion.”

“Every time I think I’m getting smarter I realize that I’ve just done something stupid. Dad says there are three kinds of people in the world: those who don’t know, and don’t know they don’t know; those who don’t know and do know they don’t know; and those who know and know how much they still don’t know.Heavy stuff, I know. I think I’ve finally graduated from the don’t-knows that don’t know to the don’t-knowsthat do.”

“But then we so rarely understand the value of what we possess until it's gone.”

“I couldn‘t tell the difference between the two of you anymore!" he roared. I smashed my fist into his face. Lies roll off us. It‘s the truths we work hardest to silence.Then you weren‘t looking hard enough! I‘m the one with boobs!"I know you‘re the one with boobs!They‘re in my fucking face every fucking time I turn around!”

“He slowed a little so I could hear him better. “No, they’re night people, Ms. Lane. They’ll be up and just as willing to see me, as I am to see them. We like to keep tabs on one another. They, however, don’t have you.” A slow smile curved his lips. He was hugely pleased with the new secret weapon he had in me. I had a sudden dismal view of my future, of being led around and asked incessantly, like one of those Verizon commercials, Do you feel sick now?”