We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

That was the deal basically: catatonia without; frenzy within

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.

A girl's not a watermelon you plug a hole in to see if it's sweet.

The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.

We knew the pain of winter rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other.

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.