"If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead."
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"'Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth.'"
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

""The strangest thing about strange things is that they're only strange when you hear about them or think about them later, but never when you're living them.""
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"How cruel it must be for a man to live past his soul."
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"Art isn't a product. It's an experience"
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"I hum some secret place into being, thinking of this other me, the one that only I can see, a girl called She, who is not We, a girl who I will never be."
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"I feel, holding books, accommodating their weight and breathing their dust, an abiding love. I trust them, in a way that I can't trust my computer, though I couldn't do without it. Books are matter. My books matter. What would I have done through these years without the library and all its lovely books?"
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)

"I can't exactly say why I've chosen to write about the things that I am writing about. There are doubtless better stories from my life that I am missing, events and escapades I am not wise enough to know were important. If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars that they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.

p 179 "
— Lori Lansens (The Girls)