the only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer

I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be 'the happiest moment' of one's life.

This is intimacy: the trading of stories in the dark.

I don't think you can say that feminism has made women critical of marriage because women have been critical of marriage for centuries.

Absolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny usually looks upon our most strident convictions with amusement, or perhaps even pity.

Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring.

I'm an enormous product of my century, I'm a product of my upbringing. I was not aware of the fact that I was entering marriage with the highest set of expectations that humans have ever brought to the institution. It was really good to find that out. It doesn't have to be the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the moon and the stars - it can just be the moon. It's enough that it just can be what it is.