He tried to smile, but it was just a shape his mouth made.

It's perfectly natural to doubt your judgment about doubting your judgment.

I live by Edith Whartons rule to get rid of anything neither useful nor beautiful. So I put the TV out on the street.

Whenever people say they didn't like the main character of a book, they mean they didn't like the book. The main character has to be a friend? I don't get that.

You don't need a reason to forgive... If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.

Nice,' I say, realizing only afterward that I've mimicked her, a bad habit of mine; I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.

Up until that moment, I'd been at the earliest stage of love, when you feel it will turn you into the better person you want to be. Now, his gentle voice and sage advice took me to a later stage: I felt I needed to pretend to be a better person than I was so he'd keep loving me. This was hard because it made me hate him.