Hope's one thing, expectation's quite another.

I want to be independent. To meet interesting people. ... I just mean new people with clever things to say. Things I've never heard before. I want to be free. Open to whatever adventure comes along and sweeps me off my feet.

I am not a storyteller . . . not like the others. I only have one tale to tell.

Lil had always believed that a person's duty was to make the best of the hand they were dealt. No use wondering what might have been, she used to say, all that matters is what is.

You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor." "I don't want to survive it." "I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice.

Even the most pragmatic person fell victim at times to a longing for something other.

All true readers have a book, a moment when real life is never going to be able to compete with fiction again.