“What could be more intimate, more placental? This steamy, candlelit cradle she'd made use, twins tied in the womb. Grooming each other, letting the soil and torment that is the world's indifference disappear down the drain. Here, at last, was my partner. Tucked behind the wet walls of our sanctum. Here we could gleam anew with infant vigor, could refuel each other...with the will to believe again.”

“I wondered just how much of her I'd invented. Had I only mastered some skill for awing myself? Or would this creature, Camilla, like a settler's incessant New World, keep increasing my capacity not only to marvel but to marvel at myself in the face of her?”

“Having you in my life is so comforting, because it's like you feel and say all the same things I always did, but hearing you say them somehow confirms them for me, the way it's impossible to feel the same pleasure from running your own fingers through your own hair. What I'm trying to say is, you just can't tickle yourself.”

“We'd both been pushing at the walls of our secret world, pushing at each other. We'd give each other everything we could.”

“What I needed more than anything was a place where unfocused unhappiness could thrive, where I could be still and worry and mope; I had the blues, and when I watched my team I could unwrap them and let them breathe a little.”

“Dean coughed helpfully. Somewhere in the cough was the word “persuasion.” He was throwing Mo a lifeline.Mo preferred to go down. “I haven’t actually read any Austen. I’m more into mysteries, crime fiction, courtroom stuff.” This was disappointing, but not damning. On the other hand it was a failing; on the other, manfully owned up to. If only Mo had stopped there.“I don’t read much women’s stuff. I like a good plot,” he said.Prudie finished her drink and set her glass down so hard you could hear it hit. “Austen can plot like a son of a bitch,” she said. “Bernadette, I believe you were telling us about your first husband.”“I could start with my second. Or the one after that,” Bernadette offered. Down with plot! Down with Mo!”

“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.”