Quotes from Judy Blundell

I loved him like a fever. Then he left. He kicked through love like it was dust and he kept on walking.

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough. But I was tougher.

I loved him like a fever. Then he left. He kicked through love like it was dust and he kept on walking.

I drove in last night,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep, it was too hot. So I went outside. I was feeling melancholy. Then I danced with a beautiful girl, and I felt better. What's your story?

When a family breaks you don't hear the crack of the breaking. You don't hear a sound.

I knew that the deepest of tragedies was simple: to love, and not to be loved in return.

I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.

I understood the word 'swoon'. It felt that way, like 'sweep' and 'moon' and 'woo', all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.

Truth, justice...I always thought they were absolutes, like God. And Mom. And apple pie. But you could make apple pie from Ritz crackers. You could make cakes without sugar. We learned how to fake things, during the war.

Loss. Thats what it was, a hole I could never fill. It would be bottomless.

Faith seems to grab people and not let go, but hope is a double-crosser. It can beat it on you anytime; it's your job to dig in your heels and hang on. Must be nice to have hope in your pocket, like loose change you could jingle through your fingers.

It had never occurred to me that I could do something without permission. 'May I' was a way of life for a girl like me.

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

Darling, I have a tip," Arlene said. "Never, ever wait for a man.

Could it really happen like this?" he asked. "That a girl like you can make me feel..." "Make you feel what?" "Make me feel," he said.

I don't have a story," I said. "I'm still waiting for one.

I breathed in and out, perfume and smoke, perfume and smoke, and we lay like that for a long time, until I heard the seagulls crying, sadder than a funeral, and I knew it was almost morning.

You're a watcher, aren't you?" Peter said. "I can tell. You watch and listen. But you know what I'm betting. The thing you can't see so clear is yourself." I was startled. Here I was, trying to come up with something to say about the weather, and he said something real. "What do you mean?" I asked. "You don't walk like a girl who knows how pretty she is, for one thing. That's a crying shame.

Ah, now she knew what divorce really was. Sharing decisions with a person you would run down on the street.

Baby, I was in a war. Of course I get it. That's where all the bad in the world comes from. Guys who like being mean. I was that guy once. We were all that guy, for at least a minute. We had to be.

What did I owe you, Peter? Truth and justice? If judges would judge, if lawyers wouldn't trick, if reporters would tell what really happened instead of what sold papers. Fat

But I do know," he continued, "how to salvage an evening for a girl in a party dress." He stood up, bowed. Held out his hand. "May I have this dance?" "Here?

May I" was a way of life for a girl like me.

Just one dance. Just one. That's all I wanted. I know now how you can take one step and you can't stop yourself from taking another. I know now what it means to want. I know it can get you to a place where there's no way out. I know now that there's no such thing as just one. But I didn't know it then.