She remembered how she had felt cleaning out her father's clothes, wanting at once to hold on to every dirty handkerchief and musty page of sheet much, and yet wishing she were anywhere else on earth, free of it all.

She thought about him all the time - not so much about Doug the individual, but rather about the nature of love, and the shock of learning how quickly it could disappear.

There were so many ways to be twenty-six years old.

This was how the modern working girl behaved. She didn’t hide her femininity or apologize for it, as they did in the old days. She flaunted it and, having been given more than any woman before her, demanded even more than that.

The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.

Reading poetry gives me a sense of calm, well-being, and love for humanity - the same stuff more flexible women get from yoga.

I like dressing up for dates and dissecting a dinner conversation with a new guy to determine if he might be The One.