You can't be beautiful," Brandy says about a thousand times, "until you feel beautiful.

When both of you are beautiful, neither of you is beautiful. Together, as a couple, you're less than the sum of your parts.

The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.

Our real discoveries come from chaos.

Yes, I kidnapped that Lindberg baby.

Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress.

Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple.