"So, actually, Sam was responsible for their having met in the first place. The least she could do was take Adam out for a nice dinner and try and seduce him" (Chapter 3).

"Just because a girl suffered from Beverly Hills ennui didn't mean she should let herself go" (Chapter 3).

"The unspoken message was that in Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach passed as literature" (Chapter 6).

"It seems as if in this town, if you have no interest in show business, show business is all the more interested in you" (Chapter 6).

"For all her insight into 'bonding,' Anna knew little about intimacy" (Chapter 7).

"So often Anna - who'd traveled all over the world - felt like Los Angeles was an alien universe, where she needed a full-time cultural guide in order to understand the natives" (Chapter 8).

"Just remember, animosity turns loose free radicals. And this isn't a theory. It was...