“He let go, releasing her into a life of her own making.”

“The flowers, the candles, the easy swing of the music, his daughter's perfectly made-up face, her artfully arranged hair, the swell of her pregnancy - it all cried out for love, for pride, for fatherly tenderness, even if Daphne would not look at him, even if she had walled herself up with her happiness and left him outside. He did not know how to make her forgive him. He would have to wait.”

“Marriage is difficult, perhaps the most difficult thing you can ever do, besides being a parent, but I think these two fine young people are up to the challenge. Here are two steady, responsible people who, I believe, understand the dire commitment they are about to make and will choose to keep that commitment. Because it turns out to be a choice, commitment-not some done deal. When you leave the alter tomorrow, there will still be a lifetime of choice and temptation and doubt and uncertainty in front of you. I didn't know that at my wedding. Getting married doesn't change you. Marriage changes you.”

“Female friendship was one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths cleanup.”

“An airplane crossed the sky, and she imagined its interior-people packed in rows like eggs in a carton, the chemical smell of the toilets, pretzels in foil pouches, cans hiss-popping open, black oval of night sky embedded in the rattling walls. How strange that something so drab, so confined, so stifling with sour exhalations and the fumes of indifferent machinery might be mistaken for a star.”

“Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and locked the bathroom door. If he thought he was going to seduce her, make her stupid enough to believe his lies by getting her into bed, he'd better think again. She stepped into the water. Besides, women didn't lose brain cells at the thought of sex. Only men did.”

“He kissed her then, not gently, not tenderly. He didn’t kiss her to comfort her. He took her mouth hungrily, almost savagely, wanting to punish her for having a body that tormented him, for telling him that his last kiss had meant nothing, needed to punish her for letting scum like Jack Caldwell call her honey, and for ever thinking about a man who wasn’t him.”