She drove as though a fortune-teller had warned her about the day.

Life is just there, to be made the best of, until it isn’t. And that’s all right, too.

I’d learned early that fatness in a book wasn’t a warning sign, but rather a promise that you would be allowed to remain in its world for a longer time.

St. Francis of Assisi: Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you will be doing the impossible.

She gave me the slow nod women use to indicate that they understand our pain, they admire the courage with which we handle it, and they're absolutely certain that it's all our fault.

So you don't think the government is responsible for anything?" "Oh, it's responsible," Rafferty says. "It's responsible for the sloppiness and imprecision of the War on Terror, for example. It's responsible for taking people's tax dollars and spending the country into debt on useless wars and pointless pork projects to buy votes. It's responsible for bailing out the banks instead of standing up for the people the banks cheated. It's responsible for plenty,

Life is just there, to be made the best of, until it isn't. And that's all right, too.

I let one of the men rename me. A man gave me the name Rose – you didn’t know that, did you, Poke?…He said, this man, he said that Kwan was too hard to remember, even though it’s a good name and it means ‘spirit,’ and that the rose was the queen of flowers and I was the queen of Patpong.” She laughs, rough as a cough. “The queen of Patpong. A kingdom of whores and viruses. Death with a smile.

The chuckle is a perfectly acceptable form of laughter.

And you know women, they're both back there turning it into the crime of the century. Planting it in a little garden in the center of their hearts and watering it with feelings. Talking about it, sharing it. You're a cheat, you're a heartbreaker, you're like a museum exhibit, Everything That's Wrong with Guys.