...wanting things for the wrong reasons can turn anyone's life into a marshmallow on a stick over a hot fire: impossibly messy and eventually consumed, one way or another.

If you don't participate, you're just taking up oxygen. (Bunny) Life is a banquet. Approach it with hunger. (Chuck)

A person who says "it's your decision" is informing you that your decision sucks.

Are you getting your period?" She narrows her eyes. No! God. I hate that. I hate when every negative act is blamed on your period." Sometimes bitchiness is just bitchiness, happily unattached to anything hormonal. It should get full credit.

Hurt is a weapon. Better weapon than most because it doesn't look like one.

I wondered if parents had an easier time with the secrets their children kept than children did with the secrets of their parents. A parent's secrets seemed like some sort of betrayal, where my own just seemed like a fact of life and growing up and away. I was supposed to be independent, but he was supposed to be available. Him having his own life seemed selfish, where me having my own was the right order of things.

And pity--people who inspire it in you are actually very powerful people. To get someone else to take care of you, to feel sorry for you--that takes a lot of strength, smarts, manipulation. Very powerful people.