“We would pay the bills. We would pretend to be high-class. This was compromise. This, I guessed, was business.”

“At home, Tommy tried to avoid looking too long at himself in the mirror, for his reflection stirred in him a feeling of great loneliness and a fear that this loneliness might be permanent.”

“Kate's unhappiness was like weather, a storm rolling constantly toward or away from her, a force she could feel approaching like a hum of electrical current across her skin before it broke open, soaking her in sadness, and she would have no choice but to brace against the misery until it wore itself out on her and passed on to someone else.”

“Beginnings are so important. Just finding that right moment to introduce this character, this world, it’s everything.”

“In my room, I looked around at all the pieces of my life, neat and tidy on their little shelves, my clothes and books and telephones, my shoes and hair barrettes, and tried to care about them. Mine, mine, mine. But they were only things, things that could have belonged to anyone.”

“We would pay the bills. We would pretend to be high-class. This was compromise. This, I guessed, was business.”

“Marriage," she said quietly, "is the most expensive ticket to nowhere”