"If you lose a flower, you get another flower," Maya reasons. "If you lose the ring, everyone is sad forever. The ring bearer has much more power." "You sound like Gollum," A.J. says. "Who’s Gollum?" Maya wants to know. "Someone very nerdy that your father likes," Amelia says. - P156
Amy turns the bottle over and reads the bottom: A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find. - P156
"It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us," the passage goes, "but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone." (156p) None of Amelia’s other college friends recognize the woman who is reading the passage, but none of them find this particularly odd either. Vassar is a small college, though certainly not the kind of place where everyone can know everyone, and Amelia has always had a knack for making friends with people from a variety of social circles. - P156
Not particularly apropos of writing but . . . Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you’re the only person in the room. —A.J.F. - P160
"In my experience, a book is more satisfying to readers if you do," A.J. says. "Although I don’t mind ambiguity myself." The groups’ cheers drown out everything after the word do. "Traitor," Lambiase yells. - P202
"Me. I was kidding about the not-bad-looking part. I know I’m not exactly the blue-ribbon cow." - P203
And that worked out so well with you and Daniel, A.J. thinks but does not say. - P204
"Plays, the odd bit of poetry. Then there are the books I teach every year: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Johnny Got His Gun, A Farewell to Arms, A Prayer for Owen Meany, some years Wuthering Heights, Silas Marner, Their Eyes Were Watching God, or I Capture the Castle. Those books are like old friends - P205
"I do want to," Lambiase says. "But not if that means I don’t get to take you on a second date. I don’t want to be a warm-up for the guy that gets you." - P207
A long one runs from her knee to her hip. Lambiase runs his thumb along it: it’s like a seam on a doll. "Yeah, I see them, but it doesn’t take away from anything." Her leg had been broken in fifteen places and she’d had to have the socket of her right hip replaced, but other than that, she’d been fine. For once in his life, Daniel had taken the brunt of the impact. - P208
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