“Ambassador Winters, allow me to introduce my aunt Abby and her…. boyfriend.' Townsed tensed. Abby glared. And Rebecca Baxter looked like she was going to choke on her chewing gum.”

“Marianne tried to stay hopeful. But slowly her imagination bulldozed her optimism aside and pushed her mind into a dark place. There, she saw Abby tethered to the boat in her bright red foul-weather gear, being dragged along dead in the sea.”

“My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?”

“She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn"t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes”

“Abby Kelly once entered a church only to find herself the subject of the sermon, which was preached from the text: " This Jezebel is come among us also." They jeered at her as she went along the street. They threw stones at her. They pelted her with bad eggs as she stood on the platform. Some of the advocates of the very cause for which she endured all this were ready to drive her from the field.”

“Macey was just starting to argue when Abby asked, "What can you tell me about the gunmen?"
"They're amateurs," Hale said at the exact same time Macey told her teacher, "They're pros.”

“But my agent has a theory. She says every marriage is jerry-rigged. Even the ones that look reasonable from the outside are held together inside with chewing gum and wire and string.”

“She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way.”

“Television is chewing gum for the eyes.”

“Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. But she did something that surprised me even more…

She kissed me.”