“Many people are more like the earth than we know. Maybe they have fault lines that sooner or later are going to split open under pressure.”

“You know how some people, when they're together, they somehow make you feel more hopeful? Make you feel like the world is not the insane place it really is?”

“I try to believe," she said, "that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they could see that crack.”

“Zip it kiddo. Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you later in life.”

“Those porch girls had no idea they were going to sprawl on that couch until the weight of their adolescent bodies sank down into the pillows. They have no idea when they will get up off that couch. They have no plans for what will happen next. They only know their bodies touching as they try to keep cool. They only know that the coolest spot they can find is in front of that rotary fan.I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhibit my life like a porch.”

“...you do not have too many boogeymen for me. You have just the right number.”

“As Vivi drove, it seemed that not only the Ya-Ya's bodies but the earth and sky were sweating. The very air they breathed was almost a juice. Moonlight spilled down into the convertible, onto the four friends' shoulders and knees and on the tops of their heads, so that their hair seemed to have little sparks shooting off it. Vivi had no idea at all where she was headed, but she knew that whatever direction she went, her friends would go with her.”