“It's because we live in a beauty-obsessed society where the most important thing a woman can do is make herself attractive to men.”

“Why did they all have to tread so very delicately around Celeste's money? It was like wealth was an embarrassing medical condition. It was the same with Celeste's beauty. Strangers gave Celeste the...”

“She felt hot liquid anger suddenly cool and harden into something powerful and immovable.”

“And maybe it was more than that.Maybe it was actually an unspoken instant agreement between the four women on the balcony: No woman should pay for the accidental death of this particular man. Maybe...”

“Something snapped," said Madeline. She saw Perry's hand shining back in its graceful, practiced arc. She heard Bonnie's guttural voice. It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in ...”

“What are you babbling on about, woman?" sighed Chloe. She'd picked this phrase up from her father and imitated his weary tone perfectly. They'd made the mistake of laughing the first time she did i...”

“In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.”

“You don't know when you're twenty-three.You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're goin...”

“Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they're gone and yet still mourn the good parts.”

“Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.”

“But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.”

“She took comfort in the familiarity of his smell, knowing that if she lost all her possessions and her home, at least she would have her family.”