“You're not getting in anything, so between us it's going to be outcest, and that's just another word for friendship. —Jocelyn Lawson”

“Thinking? You're not thinking. You're reasoning without reasons, and that's just another word for prejudice.”

“Helen Lawson: The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that's ME, baby, remember?”

“The words "when you're better" hung between us like smoke from a snuffed candle - what if she wasn't going to get better ? Well, she just had to. I got up and divided the remaining dregs of wine in the bottle between our glasses.”

“So yes, get prepared, but don't "be first"—don't start talking about *us* and *them* already, because then you're making *them* into the *other*, and that's when the shooting starts. Far too many of the survival books I've read go there, way too early. You're becoming part of the problem; you're not the hero, you're the bad guy. It's all *us*.”

“So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.”