She had to have faith not just in trying but in failing. Was she strong enough to fail Was she strong enough not to

The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the Pants --- like picking your nose.

She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.

Forget Jack, I'm in love with the cold, dirt floor.

I hated motorcycles. I said to my mother, 'I'll never get a motorcycle.' And she said, 'You never know what you'll want when you are older.' After that, the thing that scared me was not so much the motorcycle itself, but that I could turn into a person who would want one. I was scared of the idea that I could become an entirely different person, a stranger to myself.

But it was smell that carried memory.

Love is like war; easy to begin, hard to end.