It was the marriage that was important; Jane Austen rarely even bothered to write about the wedding.

Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.

A man says something. Sometimes it turns out to be the truth, but this has nothing to do with the man who says it.

Baby, high school's over. High school's never over.

In everyone's life there are people who stay and people who go and people who are taken against their will.

Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.

. . . strange and fantastic things really happen. During a rainstorm in Australia, fish fall from the sky; several Southern states consider legislation that would make the licking of toads illegal; Lisa Presley marries Michael Jackson. You read these things and you think to yourself that realism may not be the best medium through which to express the real world.