Quotes from Jennifer Weiner

She'd lost her taste for fiction. Sometimes she thought it was because spending even a few hours in an imaginary world would make it too tempting for her to consider other versions of her own story, other ways it could have unfolded. A different ending, a true happily-ever-after.

Bubbe and Zayde were old and small and wrinkly

She hoped that things had changed, but she knew that they hadn't changed enough. All the demonstrations, all the consciousness-raising, all the protests, all the pickets, all the books she'd read, all the conversations she'd had, all the ballots she'd cast, all the work and here they were, still.

Things happen, and you can't make them un-happen. You don't get do-overs, you can't roll back the clock, and the only thing you can change, and the only thing that does any good to worry about, is how you let them affect you.

Your friends will still be your friends, if they're good friends.

had become an EST instructor, which made both of them laugh.

Do not postpone life until two pounds form now. Go on the trip. Wear the strapless dress. Go zip lining, or water-skiing, or swimming with the dolphins. None of us are guaranteed a future. Putting ff joy until you're the right size could mean you'll never experience it at all.

none of which filled the hours that dragged by, until it was three o'clock and time to take the bus to Uncle Mel's. Each week, Bethie would

First of all, it's life. You don't win.

Why would you want to spend your money to go to countries where the people are so poor that they'd do anything to come over here?

Imagine every day you go to a school where the building's run-down and the textbooks are outdated and there's forty kids in every class, and you put your hand over your heart for the pledge—one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all—but you know it's a lie, and there's no liberty for you, no justice for you.

A body was just a body, just a vessel for her soul, and she was under no obligation to keep her body looking any certain way...

put his hands on Kim's shoulders, his expression was almost smug.

wondering how you could let your own body get away from you, like it was a car speeding away out of control. Now she understood. You stopped weighing yourself, stopped restricting yourself to small meals and salads, stopped picking French fries off of your friend's plate and started ordering your own... and imagine herself as pure emotion, not a body at all.

First of all, it's got a million calories.

It was a shame: by September, the ocean was finally warm enough for swimming, especially if it had been a hot August

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone has obligations. Everyone keeps going. You lean on the people who love you. You do the best you can and you keep going.

The ones who nod in sympathy when their friends talked about street harassment, but whose lived experience involved more shouts of "lose some weight" than cat calls and leers. The

It was easy to make good choices when you had a web of people supporting you, not to mention money as a safety net when everyone else in your family did the right thing, went to the right college, held down a job.

Remember the M.S. St. Louis?" Jo nodded. It felt like every week of Hebrew school they'd gotten lessons on the Holocaust, including the story of the ship of nine hundred Jewish refugees that had been turned away from the United States in 1939 because the government believed the passengers were spies. "I've told you what it was like for me as a girl. Kids calling me names. Throwing things at me. And nobody

the floor and cubbyholes for mail against the wall. Upstairs the rooms were airy, with high ceilings and walls

There are friends who tell you, "Someday you'll laugh about this." Susan's my best friend because, with her, "someday" is always now.

see it—but she wondered whether they would ever not try to have it all and do it all and do all of it flawlessly. Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough? Her

She felt a great, impotent rage sweep through her, fury at the war, and the politicians who'd sent so many young men to be maimed or killed.