“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”

“He gave me a last dark look, not admitting defeat,not giving an inch .I watched him with unexpected regret. Watched him until the consciousness went out of his eyes and they were simply open but seeing nothing.”

“Her dreams felt so far out of reach. She’d faced one of them tonight, faced him in four-inch heels. But four-inch heels didn’t make her any younger. She couldn’t click her four-inch heels together and find her true way home. Four inches didn’t bring her any closer to happiness. Four inches didn’t erase the past.”

“A while back, my friend Graydon Carter mentioned that he was opening a restaurant in New York. I cautioned him against this, because it’s my theory that owning a restaurant is the kind of universal fantasy everyone ought to grow out of, sooner rather than later, or else you will be stuck with the restaurant. There are many problems that come with owning a restaurant, not the least of which is that you have to eat there all the time. Giving up the fantasy that you want to own a restaurant is probably the last Piaget stage.”

“I rubbed him along his back, letting him know I was there for him, and if we did have our brains sucked out at least we were together.”

“She, at least, ought to have known that he was wearing a mask, and having found that out, she should have torn it from his face, whenever they were alone together....Her love for him had been paltry and weak, easily crushed by her own pride”