But for now, I'm paying for three private school tuitions, a nanny salary, a dog walker, a housekeeper who only shows up on occasion, rental space to park out car, a mortgage on a family-sized apartment, and the rent on a Hamptons house we run to each weekend to exhale, all with after-tax dollars. I need to work the room tonight.
-- Belle (first-person narration) (chapter 1)

Importance: Belle puts a lot of pressure on herself to socialize at the Feagin Dixon company Christmas party, believing that it will help her receive more money in the company's crucial annual bonuses. This passage also illustrated Belle's fraught relationship with money, as she habitually spends lots of her hard-earned money on things that she does not truly want or need. This pattern of needing to earn more money, only in order to purchase things that do not actually make Belle happy, contributes to her rising stress levels.

Enough of...
-- Violette (chapter 4)