“You're judging her by her literacy," Tara says. "You're a literacist." "You've made that up.”

“I hope you're not smoking in front of her,' Lucia says to him.'Yeah, I lie in bed and puff in her face, Lucia,' he says, irritated.”

“I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.”

“So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, "It's Francesca Spinelli," and she says, "Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?" and I say "I feel like shit", and I don't know how it happens, but by eight o'clock that night I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life.”

“And through all the misery, she said that some of us in this lifetime experience a moment of beauty beyond reckoning. I asked her what that was, and she said, "If you're one of the lucky ones, you'll know it when you see it. You'll understand why the gods have made you suffer. Because that moment's reward will make your knees weak and everything you've suffered in life will pale in comparison.”

“I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

“We're so different. You're an intellectual. I'm an idiot.""Don't say that," I yelled. "You're not an idiot, you stupid idiot.”