"It was more of a 'see you later' situation, but still I adopted my mother's attitude, as it allowed me to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice" (Chapter 1, p. 3).

"...friendship would have taken away their mystery and interfered with the good feeling I got from pitying them" (Chapter 1, p. 6).

"When older, even the crankiest of us would accept them as proof that we were once a happy family: our mother young and health, our father the man who could snap his fingers and give us everything we wanted" (Chapter 3, p. 26).

"The slumber party took place in what the Methodists called a family room, the Catholics used as an extra bedroom, and the neighborhood's only Jews had turned into a combination darkroom and fallout shelter" (Chapter 4, p. 32).

"Lance paid his rent and called a few months later complaining that birds were congregating in the tree outside...