“I think it was the institution...I was trying to master it.”

“You have some balls."Frankie hated that expression, ever since Zada had pointed out to her that it equates courage with the male equipment...”

“I can feel like a hag some days if I want! And I can tell everybody how insecure I am if I want! Or I can be pretty and pretend to think I'm a hag out of fake modesty - I can do that if I want, too...”

“So she did not replay, but played the strategist. She retained more power by withholding an answer.”

“When there's a negative word or expression-immaculate, for example-but the positive is almost never used, and you choose to use it, you become rather amusing. Or pretentious. Or pretentiously amusi...”

“She will not be simple and sweet.She will not be what people tell her she should be.”

“With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.”

“Then Cassie told her story. The feeling was like gathering up everything she's ever done or felt or known up to that moment and tying it into a ball and pitching it with all her might as far away a...”

“Every woman needs secrets,' her mother said with a smile then, her eyes meeting Sally's in the rearview mirror. 'Remember that when you're old like me, pumpkin, because the world has a way of makin...”