Quotes from Wendy Wax

began to pray in earnest. She realized as she did so that she hadn't addressed God in any way since her father's fatal illness five years ago. And if God hadn't responded to that life-and-death situation, what were the chances that He was going to bother with a matter as small as Kendall Aims's career?

she hated that the dress would give the network an opportunity to deduct more IQ points, though why people seemed to think large breasts destroyed gray matter, she didn't know. Especially when it was clear that men often thought with their penises and bypassed their brains altogether.

When you can sit down and produce a four-hundred-page manuscript that can transport a reader somewhere else for a spell, maybe I'll allow you to criticize.

She'd heard once that shaping your lips into a smile whether you meant it or not made your words sound happier.

the fact that her children were so obviously living their own lives was bittersweet. Their independence was what you hoped for and worked toward, but the reality was you just weren't that critical anymore.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat's mat is a story. —JOHN LE CARRÉ

Steve doesn't work here anymore." Madeline sat in the cul-de-sac, trying to absorb the words she'd just heard. "I haven't seen Steve since he was laid off. That was at the beginning of September. About six months ago.

Mallory sat propped up in bed, her laptop, appropriately enough, in her lap,

If Steve didn't have a job, where did he go every day after he put on his suit and strolled out the door with his briefcase? More important, why hadn't he told her?

They looked at each other. "I don't understand it. But I know who sent it." Maddie Singer's thumbs and her iPhone were often incompatible. She claimed she'd been a lot more comfortable with her smartphone before it got so smart.

whenever I do a signing or a talk, people are really curious about the business and the whole creative process.

It was only later that she would remember that the truth did not always set you free. And that you had to be careful what you wished for, because you might actually get it.

A summer full of cheap food, folding chairs, and home-cooked meals. Those good times were so going to roll.

ladies' clothing aisle—strategically located just past the automotive section—where Avery and Madeline selected some of the ugliest shorts and T-shirts Nicole had ever seen.

it seemed efficient cargo area filling was yet another suburban skill at which Madeline Singer excelled.

Give a man an inch and he'll call himself a ruler,

Getting older is definitely not for sissies." But then neither, it seemed, was marriage.

And remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. Only she did it backwards and in heels.

I've been pinching our pennies so tightly that Abraham Lincoln's face is imprinted on my fingers.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you. —W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. —W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

I had one celebrity, who shall remain nameless," Nicole said when pumped for stories about her high-profile clients, "who wouldn't consider dating anyone who'd ever eaten a green M& M.

Like Pig-Pen from the Charlie Brown comic strip, her cloud hovered over her, dark and daunting and devoid of a silver lining.

satellite TV—as always amazed that there could be so many options and so little to watch.