The trick is not to make eye contact. They don't charge if you don't make eye contact.

After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.

That, they knew, was true friendship. And they knew, if you're lucky enough to find it, you hold on to it.

Those silly girls had no idea what they were really celebrating. They had no idea what it took to bring Agatha and her friends together seventy-five years ago. The Women's Society Club had been about supporting one another, about banding together to protect one another because no one else would. But it had turned into an ugly beast, a means by which rich ladies would congratulate themselves by giving money to the poor. And Agatha had let it happen. All her life, it seemed, she was making up for things she let happen.

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

Embarrassment felt a lot like eating chili peppers. It burned in the back of your throat and there was nothing you could do to make it go away. You just had to take it, suffer from it, until it eased off.

It was like she was MADE of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone's guess what was on the inside.