“I ran like a thing that runs.”

“I like to talk. Talking is kind of my thing. If talking had been a sport option at Wexford, I would have been captain. But sports always have to involve running, jumping, or swinging your arms around. You don’t get PE points for the smooth and rapid movement of the jaw.”

“Once again, her parents' problems had run through her life like a piece of heavy equipment, smashing everything in their way.”

“Money is for doing things, my love. Don't sit on it like a hen sits on an egg. It doesn't hatch. I should know. I've made enough of it.”

“It could have been like a fairy tale. But fairy tales aren't real. Things don't work like that. There's a price for everything.”

“In my mind, I said the best things to Elton. I wrote countless excellent notes that I never sent. I came up with clever and highly detailed imaginary situations in which we were thrown together and it somehow made him realize that life without me was a hollow shell. But he didn't look like a hollow shell. He looked like he was back on the soccer team, all calf muscles and lean body.”

“Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, "Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability?”