Quotes from Jennifer Weiner

thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

A girl named Jo once had a life / But that's gone now; she's only wife.

There is a long time in me between knowing and telling." —GRACE PALEY

You're allowed to want to use your education. You're allowed to want to be more than a mother.

If she married a man, she could let him plan, let him push, let him maneuver; and the world they inhabited would welcome them. They would always have a place. It would be easy, and Jo was so tired.

In space, nobody could hear you scream; on the Internet, nobody could tell if you were lying.

Misses everything," Lila said, and gave the faintest smile. "It's like a joke. Like, there should be a Mister Everything somewhere.

He'd been lonely, and I'd been lonely, but if we were together, we'd never have to be lonely again.

Husbands and houses are negotiable, she said, And as for a plan... we'll figure it out.

Baby, groaned the guy-Ted? Tad?-something like that-and crushed his lips against the side of her neck, shoving her face against the wall of the toilet stall.

Women had made progress - Jo only had to look as far as the television set to see it - but she wondered whether they would ever not try to have it all and do it all and do it all flawlessly. Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough?

When your mom and I were your age, there weren't a lot of options for girls. Like, you know how your mother's always telling you that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up? That wasn't what we heard. Men could be doctors or lawyers. We were just supposed to marry them.

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, no more than she was obliged to do anything just because it was customary, or traditional, or expected of women in America. She didn't have to get married, she didn't have to have kids, and she didn't have to be thin.

You'll get through it, she said, leaving out the part I already knew-because you're a mother now. Because mothers don't have a choice.

You've got to make time. It's important. You know how they tell you on planes, in case of an emergency, the adults should put their oxygen masks on first? You're not going to be any good to anyone if you're not taking care of yourself.

Beauty was power, and Bethie wanted her power back.

Jo thought sometimes that Bethie liked to play at being a rebel, when the truth was that her sister had a genius for conformity, for making herself the best, most stylish example of whatever version of femininity was currently in fashion.

Still waters run deep, I'd thought. Later, I learned that silence did not necessarily guarantee depth.

You don't think she ever loved your dad?" Shelley shook her head. "I think, for her, it was more like taking a job than falling in love. If you've been bred to marry a rich man and have his babies and basically be decoration, and you have no skills and no idea how to support yourself, how many options do you really have?

People are like that. They can only give you what they have inside. So if this Sydelle character is giving you so much trouble, it's because she's nothing but trouble on the inside. She's just delivering what's in her heart into the universe.

Make sure you have people who love you, the real you, not the Instagram you.

Born on third base and think they hit a triple

Bethie and Harold glowed, with success and contentedness, and with, Jo thought, a little meanly, the kind of well-rested good looks you could have only when you were childless.

Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough?