“Writing wasn't easy for her. It wasn't like arithmetic, not like a column of numbers to be added or subtracted from the top of the blackboard to the bottom, neat and organized; or science, figuring out the why of things.”

“She was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn't going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn't going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.”

“The decent, strong person had to do decent, strong things like love unlovable people and keep peace even when it wasn't easy.”

“It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere to settle beside her and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert her now.”

“I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death.”

“You couldn't just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn't like a light switch, easy to turn on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out.”

“Just wait a second. We can't leave it like this." But this too, wasn't true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.”

“It wasn't torpor that kept her - she was often restless to the point of irritability. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed.”

“Her problem wasn't she was a dumb blonde, it was she wasn't a blonde and she wasn't dumb.”

“Someone, I was beginning to suspect, had a bit of a gangster complex.
It wasn't really very hard to figure out who. I mean, I was guessing it wasn't Christopher's aunt Jackie.”