Quotes from Jennifer Weiner

Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can't survive… it's the thing that makes you better than you used to be.

Probably she's dead already. But you couldn't run forever. They had told her that in rehab, too. Eventually you had to stop running, and even the worst failures, the true fuckups and wastes of space, had to try to fix what they had broken. You had to turn and see what you had done.

She would look this other Diana in the eyes and then she'd decide what she would do, how she could confront Hal without hurting some poor, blameless woman, in a world where being born female meant spending years of your life at risk, and the rest of it invisible, existing as prey or barely existing at all.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.

These days, designers who'd rather die than gain ten pounds, designers who'd rather make clothes for purse dogs than fat people, could mouth the right platitudes and make the right gestures.

nodded. I did know. Once I'd started searching out clothes that fit and looked good on the body I had instead of the one that I wanted, I had discovered exactly the feeling Leela Thakoon was talking about.

It happened this way sometimes. We'd be having a perfectly normal conversation… or, at least, a conversation as close to normal as we could have—and then he'd say something that would remind me that nothing was normal, nothing at all.

that if you use people your entire life, if you manipulate them and take from them, and throw them away when you don't need them anymore, then yes, there are consequences.

The measure of a man is, does he know how to love. Clement Sills knew how to love. That's what he did. That's what he taught every single one of us who were lucky enough to know him.

She lay awake on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until it was six o'clock and her husband got up, quietly, to put on his running clothes, feigning sleep until she heard the front door open, and close. Then she lay there for another hour, wondering if she could continue to live like this, and, if not, what she was supposed to do next.

A man takes care of his house, and a man takes care of his tools.

and my father together had gently

Thank you," she said, and thought of something Hannah had told her once, long ago, about how, for old married ladies like them, making a new friend was the closest they could get to falling in love.

This wasn't the life she signed up for.

When women lift each other up, when we reach out our hands to each other, when we honor the ones who came before us and hold the door open for the ones who will follow, there is nothing we can't do.

As long as people can still surprise you, it means you're not dead.

being born female meant spending years of you life at risk, and the rest of it invisible, existing as prey or barely existing at all.

So, Nora leaves him in the end, she said, as they walked down the stairs. What? In the play. A Doll's House . That's right. Beatrice went to the sink. She says she can't be anyone's wife or anyone's mother until she knows who she is. She walks out of their house and closes the door behind. It's this iconic moment. At least, that's what our teacher said. That's very interesting.

Even if things don't get better, you can always make them look good on the Internet.

schools—a place to deposit a wayward son

It's almost religious, that belief, that faith that a piece of silk or denim or cotton jersey could disguise your flaws and amplify your assets and make you both invisible and seen, just another normal woman in the world; a woman who deserves to get what she wants.

on noon at Friday

It wasn't just the money, it was the polish that the money had given her, the cities she'd visited, the plays and the art she'd seen.

Want to see the collection of inhaled and swallowed objects?" she asked. "You're kidding, right?" She made her eyes wide. "Oh, I never kid about inhaled and swallowed objects.