“Maybe the idea of the supposed tension between working and nonworking mothers had been put out in the world just to cause divisiveness.”

“The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.”

“The difference between sex and love is that sex relieves tension and love causes it.”

“Things just didn’t work out between us. Who knows, another time, another place, maybe things still wouldn’t have worked out.”

“Maybe you could drive yourself crazy trying to chart backward all the causes and effects, all the ends and means, tracing everything to some original sin that may or may not have actually occurred but that people accepted as true, or true enough. Maybe staring into the eyes of all that history was a dangerous thing to do, as her mother had calmly warned her. Maybe you were supposed to move forward armed with just enough history to help you figure out the present without obsessing over the past. But how much was enough? Where was the gray area between ignorance and obsession?”

“Life doesn't work out the way we plan, but maybe it works out the way it's supposed to after all.”