Quotes from Emily Giffin

That is one of the problems with getting older. There is a distinct lag time between how you see others and how you view yourself. I still thought of myself as looking twenty-four.

I feel as if they are putting on a show... It is always that way when you are in a group and someone decides to go for a swim or walk to the water. The ocean is like a giant stage. It is natural that the others watch, if only for a moment.

It occurs to me that as different as we are in our behavior and decisions, our most basic, knee-jerk emotional reactions to really big things are often remarkably similar. And it is in these moments that I am most grateful for my sister.

When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You might grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn't a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume that it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for granted, which might be the very thing so dear about it.

Deep down, I am also repenting. I am proving my love. I am renewing my vows. I am safeguarding my marriage. I am choosing Andy.

Underscoring all of this is Leo—his constant presence in my mind, along with the troubling realization that I deeply associate him with the city and vice versa. So much so, in fact, that leaving New York feels an awful lot like leaving him.

I ever stop loving him the way you're supposed to stop loving everyone but the one you're with? If the answer is no, then will the lapse of time or a change of geography really fix the problem? And regardless of the answer, what does the mere question say about my relationship with Andy?

But it's simply human nature to have an occasional, fleeting interest in someone whom you once loved.

I still find myself reaching out and knocking twice on our wooden cutting board. Because you can never be too sure when it comes to the things that matter most.

In the end, you can slap a pretty label on it—like serendipity or fate. Or you can believe that it's just the random way life unfolds.

I'm not really shy. I'm an introvert." I went on to explain the difference—the fact that being around people didn't make me uneasy, I just preferred to be alone most of the time.

It's always a good feeling when you can produce just the right one-liner to prove your point so tidily.

People who like surprises want you to like surprises, too.

I flash a fake smile of my own, refraining from telling her what I'm really thinking: that it's an unwise karmic move to go around feeling superior to other mothers. Because before she knows it, her little angel could become a tattooed teenager hiding joints in her designer handbag and doling out blow jobs in the backseat of her BMW.

But that's the thing about the sucker punch; the sucker element hurts worse than the punch.

I close my eyes, wondering whether we are ever truly blindsided by misfortune. Or, somehow, somewhere, in the form of empathy or worry or a premonition deep within ourselves, do we feel it coming?

I think about the thin, fragile line separating all of us from misfortune, almost as a way of putting a few coins in my own gratitude meter, of safeguarding against and after happening to me.

She was generally a happy person but had a tendency to live in the past, making frequent references to "when you kids were little.

Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall--the blind belief in fate, the whole things happening for a reason drill. But my personal favorite defense has always been anger, with its trusty offshoots of self-righteous indignation, bitterness, and resentment.

But he was a golden child, too good for the world.

Her voice is as warm and soothing as the carbohydrates they will share.

Our choices. Our fleeting moments together.

I also appreciate Amy's forty-something perspective that the thirties are a grind for many, and motherhood isn't the constantly blissful journey everyone thinks it will be when they attend their pink or blue or yellow baby shower.

It doesn't mean a thing. Not a thing. Sometimes, in life, there is no meaning at all.