How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Margie held her candy cigarette high in the air, even though ladies don't smoke on the street. We couldn't imagine being wicked enough to smoke on the street, but it was something to shoot for, something that smacked of high heels and saying "damn" if you broke a nail. (2.7)
When the novel starts out, Evie and her friend Margie have no idea what it means to be grown-up, and instead they just play at it, smoking fake cigarettes on the corner like some kind of glamorous woman.
Quote #2
They didn't move. She was bent back in his arms, one hand on his chest. Suddenly I was just like the chair, or the hat rack—just a stick of furniture in the room. Back then they were everything I knew about glamour. Everything I knew about love. (4.26)
Evie's just a kid who's never experienced real romance in her life—not even the grade school kind where you hold hands and then never talk to each other again. Because of this, she thinks that her mom and Joe have the most perfect, loving relationship.
Quote #3
I know now how you can take one step and you can't stop yourself from taking another. I know now what it means to want. I know it can get you to a place where there's no way out. I know now that there's no such thing as just one. But I didn't know it then. (6.40)
All this time, Evie's been so stinking excited to grow up and be an adult like her mom. But what she doesn't realize is that once you grow up, you can't go back to a place of innocence—whether you like it or not.