“I wanted to be strong when I went back to Persuasion. Strong and beautiful and totally together. I dreamed of the day I’d get to rub all your faces in my sheer awesomeness.”

“And I want cabana boys named Raoul to rubwarm, fragrant oil all over me, from head to toe, all over my throat and chest and my legs and arms. Iwant—”Theo pushed the chair back on the deck and it made a loud scraping sound. He grabbed Lucy’s faceand kissed her hard, then rose up and placed her on her feet, taking her hand.“Where are we going, Theo?”“Shh.” He stroked her hair as he led her inside. “The name’s Raoul.”

“Have you ever met a man who looked so damn delicious that you wanted to sop him up with a hot buttermilk biscuit and inhale him in one gulp?”“Why, yes, I have,” Doris said.That was a shocker. “Really? What happened?”“I married him.”

“That’sthe kind of dress that belongs on the floor, all wrinkled up, with the zipper broken and the sleeves torn.That dress isn’t right for you at all. In fact, I think you should take it off right now.”

“I think we love who we love and there’s not a damn thing that can be done about it.”

“Light mayonnaise is like masturbation—it approximates the real thing but leaves you unfulfilled,ultimately leading to fantasies about diving face-first into a big-ass jar of the real stuff.”

“She'd even violated the only sensible rule of dieting she'd ever run across, the sage advice of the Muppets' Miss Piggy, who recommended never eating anything bigger than your head.”