The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

There are two kinds of people in this world. The kind who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.

I was supposed to write a romantic comedy, but my characters broke up.

She used to cry roughly three times a year. Now she seemed to cry three times before breakfast. Could that be considered progress?

Different people were good at different things, Lena mused. Lena was good at writing thank-you notes, for instance, and Effie was good at being happy.

Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.

She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.

The word friends doesn't seem to stretch big enough to describe how we feel about each other. We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops.

I mean putting yourself out there in the way of overwhelming happiness and knowing you're also putting yourself in the way of terrible harm. I'm scared to be this happy. I'm scared to be this extreme.

Carmen was bad at loving. She loved too hard.

Carmen didn't like change, and she certainly didn't like endings.

Life isn't just fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all. -William Goldman

Some things have to be believed to be seen. -Ralph Hodgson

Sometimes it is a relief to be invisible

Carmen sat up when she heard a familiar trill from her computer. It was an instant message from Bee. Beezy3: Packing. Do you have my purple sock with the heart on the ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I'd wear your socks. Carmen looked from her computer screen down to her feet. To her dismay, her socks were two faintly different shades of purple. She rotated her foot to get a view of her anklebone. Carmabelle: Ahem. Might possibly have sock.

But then she hadn’t just learned to love this summer – she had also learned how to need.

Women always seemed to bring the size they wished they were to the fitting room, rather than the size that would actually fit.

The dreams weren’t as pleasing when they had no chance of coming true

The bottom had arrived. She crashed against it, but it brought no sense of closure or understanding. She just lay there at the bottom looking up. She knew there must be a very tiny circle of light up there somewhere, but just now she couldn’t see it.

Everything I ever said to you was true and is true.

But there were times when you felt miserable and you wanted to feel better, and other times when you felt miserable and you figured you would just keep on feeling miserable.

Tibby sat on the outside of a group of kids in the film program. There was a lot of dark clothing and heavy footwear, and quite a few piercings glinting in sunlight. They had invited her to sit with them while they all finished up their lunches before film seminar. Tibby knew that they had invited her largely because she had a ring in her nose. This bugged her almost as much as when people excluded her because she had a ring in her nose.

I know you are always finding ways to love me in spite of how horrible I am, I hope I haven't run out of chances.

You Could Only See As Far As Your Headlights, But You Can Make Your Whole Trip That Way :)

The phone was her worst enemy and her best friend but she never knew which until she answered it.

She wasn't as destructive as Bee. She had never been as dramatic. Rather, she'd slipped carefully, stealthily away from her ghosts.

I tell myself your spirits were down the day you wrote. You're fine and we're fine. I hope it's true.

You broke up with him," a combination Effie-Carmen voice in her head reminded her. "But that didn't mean you were allowed to stop loving me," she felt like saying to him.

sometimes you need to make a mess.

She was bad at love. She loved too hard.