“He knows how Molly grieves. Once he's gone, she'll lock the place up. Then she'll cry some and drink some. And she'll do that, over and over again, until the skin over this latest wound has grown tough enough for her to carry on.”

“I sit down on the bed, cradling her little head against my shoulder, inhaling her sweet baby scent. Someday she'll get older, and the world will start having its way with her. She'll throw temper tantrums, she'll need speech therapy, she'll grow breasts and have pimples, she'll fight with her parents, she'll worry about her weight, she'll put out, she'll have her heart broken, she'll be happy, she'll be lonely, she'll be complicated, she'll be confused, she'll be depressed, she'll fall in love and get married, and she'll have a baby of her own. But right now she is pure and undiminished and beautiful.”

“Some girls will love you for your intelligence, your spirit, or your smile. Some girls will fall all over themselves if you even make the smallest effort to understand them. Some girls don't care how you act as long as you drive a nice car(And some boys deserve those kind of girls. i'm just sayin'.) Some girls will require a lot more from you than most guys are willing to give. This is the girl you'll need a lot of patience for, because she will lead you down blind paths and up steep hills. The challenge will be staying true to who you are while pursuing this person. She'll wring you out, simultaneously repel and attract you, and question your every intention. She'll be the biggest pain in the asphalt you've ever had. She'll need you to understand what she won't tell you, believe in her when she extends no faith in you, and not give in to her when she wants to roll over you. She'll expect that you'll always be there, even when she avoids you. She'll want lots of independence but want you to need her desperately. She'll expect you to be smart but treat her like she's smarter than you. Hopefully, you'll believe she's worth it in the end.”

“He sees her like I do: at seventeen, twenty, thirty. Superimposed over the fourteen-year-old, he sees the woman she'll become.And he's staking claim.Over. my. Dead. Fucking. Body.And I can't die.”

“You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't wake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia and she'll hear you.”

“...she'll cry, and if she does, I probably will, and then she'll have found a way in, and I will not let her pierce my walls in a Trojan horse of sympathy.”