“If you want something bad enough you must work hard for it!”

“When we feel weak, we drop our heads on the shoulders of others. Don't get mad when someone does that. Be honored. For that person trusted you enough to, even if subtly, ask you for help.”

“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: if a boy punches you he likes you, never try to trim your own bangs, and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is just moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this: knowing after all the unreturned phone calls and broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment... You never gave up hope.”

“I was waiting at table tonight, on account of it being such a big party, and just as I was coming round with the savoury, one of the ladies went and broke her necklace by fidgeting with it at the ta ble. She thought she picked 'em all up but this one rolled under my foot and I stood on it tight until all the ladies went upstairs. I wanted to give it to you. You're a black pearl, Bertha, that's what you are and it's only right that you should have it.”

“...when I see you here amidst all this, I realise that I proposed to a very small part of you. I thought I was giving you a home and a position, but here I see that I am taking you away from so much.”

“I told you, you're my black pearl. When i first set eyes on you in the servant's hall I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.”

“Men marry women who see through their bullshit, and women marry men they can't seduce, at least according to Lou. It's the only way you can live with each other over long periods of time and get things done, raising kids and buying houses and all the other nonsense of matrimony and human striving. To Judith, this was a depressing thought. She wanted to marry a man who was so crazy for her he couldn't see straight.”