“The old rule about how a thing of beauty is a joy forever, in my experience, even the most beauteous thing is only a joy for about three hours, tops. After that, she'll want to tell you all about her childhood traumas. Part of meeting these jail girls is it's so sweet to look at your watch and know she'll be behind bars in half an hour.”

“After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.”

“You only ask people about themselves so you can tell them about yourself.”

“That's what I love about fire, how it would kill me as quick as anybody else. How it can't know I'm its mother. It's so beautiful and powerful and beyond feeling anything for anybody, that's what I love about fire.”

“I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.”

“That old saying, about how you always kill the thing you love, well, it works both ways. And it does work both ways.”

“There are a lot of things we don't want to know about the people we love.”