“Maybe that was the answer to good parentingpretending the first child was the second.”

“Some people smoked crack in alleyways. Franny ate chocolate. On the scale of things, it seemed entirely reasonable.”

“She had the wild look of someone who hadnt slept in twenty-four hours, with purplish semicircles underneath both her eyes. Being eighteen was like being made out of rubber and cocaine.”

“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self of so many years ago, and to make the same decision.”

“Maybe that was the answer to good parenting—pretending the first child was the second.”

“She had the wild look of someone who hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, with purplish semicircles underneath both her eyes. Being eighteen was like being made out of rubber and cocaine.”

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”