“Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.”

“She has often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see.”

“She was alive, and they were dead. She had to try to make her life big. As big as she could. She promised Bailey she would keep playing.”

“She went from angry to calm so fast that he wondered if she wasn’t the Ferrari of moms. Her top speed had to be.65 nanoseconds.’ (Nick)”

“She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.”

“Slutkiss girls, won't you promise her smack?
Is she pretty on the inside?
Is she pretty from the back?
Slutkiss girls, won't you water her rack?
Is she pretty on the inside?
Is she pretty from the back?
Slutkiss girl, molasses, rot blackstrap
Is she rotten on the inside
Is she ugly, ugly from the back?”

“She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.”

“He wondered if she wondered if he were watching her.”

“Dead woman are not romantic,' Sophie said flatly.

'Okay, she's not dead,' Phin said. 'The bear ate her, and she came her brains out.”

“She envied Camille. Camille was a tramp, Mildred thought. And things were so much easier for a tramp. There was no conscience, no sense of loss, nothing but a wonderful, relaxed, stretching-cat selfishness. She could go to bed with anyone she wanted to and never see him again and have no feeling of loss or insecurity about it. That was the way Mildred thought it was with Camille. She wished she could be that way, and she knew she couldn't. Couldn't because of her mother. And the unbidden thought entered her mind—if her mother were only dead Mildred's life would be so much simpler. She could have a secret little place to live somewhere. Almost fiercely, she brushed the thought away. "What a foul thing to think," she said to herself ceremoniously. But it was a dream she often had.”