“My mother, of course, had a different opinion. 'They're driving me crazy!' she said, swatting at them with her beige Coach handbag. 'How can you tell?' my dad asked. 'Between your menopause craziness and your turning fifty craziness and everything else?''Forty-eight!' my mom cried. Dad groaned. 'Have you forgotten who you're lying to?”

“And yet I know I am too young, that we're too young, for me to live my life only as it relates to you. If you had asked me to marry you the night you first told me about your acceptance, I would have embraced Princeton as part of a larger plan that involved me. I probably would have reacted differently.I might even had said yes.Alas, you didn't ask me then. You made plans for your future without me in mind, And that's okay. But how can you now ask me to arrange my life around you?”

“The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it. ”

“Crocodile LiesI confess, yes, our Fall was all my faultIf you kissed my eyes, your lips would taste saltBut you think my regret is a lie, and the tears I cryAre the crocodile kind.The sweat on your upper lip starts to boilWhite hot with anger, still convinced I'm your foilYou keep fighting me, though my eyes are freeFrom crocodile lies.You, yes, you, linger inside my heartThe same you who stopped us before we could startI didn't want to leave, but you began to believeYour own crocodile lies.The only person stopping you is yourself,You won't accept that I want no one else,So until you do, I'll let someone else have youEvery day I live the lie,But not the crocodile kind--Marcus Flutie”

“Oh, yeah,' she said. 'He likes your brain, J.D., but he ain't attracted to you, which is a cryin' shame, if you don't mind me sayin' so.'No. How could I mind the truth? It was a cryin' shame, and my tears almost dripped right into my stuffing.”

“Prayers are answered in one of four ways,” she said. “Yes. No. I havesomething else in mind. And . . .”She paused long enough for my impatience to show. “And what’s thefourth answer?”“Wait,” she said.”

“I pray that it will be different when they're our age. I pray for a cure to the Virus so they can choose not to share their bodies before they're ready. I pray that they will have the power to choose when and how they will marry, make love, make babies. And I pray that they will not be judged if they choose not to do those things in the "right" order....My sister and I close our eyes. We dream of a better world. We imagine what we can - and will - do to make it possible.”