We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?

She'd always known he didn't love her. But it was easier to bear when he didn't know she loved him. That way they were even. Now he knew he had all the power.

Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we cant have.

Her life was monotonous, but it kept her out of trouble. . . . This, her father would say, was called being an adult.

Children always know when their mothers are crazy - they just never admit it, not out loud, to anyone.

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

Coffee, she'd discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.