“I don’t think I emerged from the marriage much different. A little sadder, maybe a little more bitter, but not essentially changed. It was years later, when I was a practicing doctor, single again, but this time with a new baby, that Mark Petrello made his difference in my life. At that earlier time, I realized only that I’d experienced one of those disastrous marriages people refuse to talk about.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“A couple of guys fell in love with me and showed up in our dorm hall, but the ones I really liked sort of ignored me. I thought I must have a complex to only want the ones who didn’t care.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘They were two people but one entity. When they passed out blankets, she took one for him and tucked it around his legs. When they got off the plane, he held her purse until she’d stood up. I’d ask them a question and only one of them would answer, and it wasn’t as if they were taking turns, it as if they both knew which person should answer which question. It was wonderful.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘I would never hurt your feelings on purpose. You’re my best friend. I don’t think anyone except my family has ever known me as well as you.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘I’ve been thinking about college,’ I said, perching on a chair, toweling my wet hair, ‘and I think the first year I learned about independence, the second year I learned about religion, the third year I learned about Los Angeles, and this year I’m learning about sex.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“Two times divorced means that another marriage could mean three times divorced, and that’s impossible. Three times divorced goes beyond stigma into shame, or, worse, comedy.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“The first divorce is okay, it can happen to anyone-too young, too romantic, unrealistic-but the second divorce is different. The second divorce is stigma.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘You have to separate what you’re responsible for from what you’re not.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘I think the first year I learned to be away from home, the second year I learned about friendship and love, the third year I learned about death, and this year I’m learning about justice.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“We looked at each other and smiled. It was, although we didn’t know it, the beginning of a friendship. It was also the beginning of my career.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“It’s hard to give up a memory. No matter what comes after, it’s impossible to forget a small moment of happiness, to admit that it was a fluke, an isolated moment in time with no chance-because our lives are not circular-of reeling around again.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“Still, we’re less betrayed by others, it seems, than by our own hopes and dreams.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“Oh, I loved him. And there’s no question he loved me. He wanted to be alive, remember? More than anything, alive. Without qualification. And with me, at the beginning at least, he felt alive.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘Listen, marriage is an arrangement. This love stuff is way overrated.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“Well that’s life, I thought. It ends. And that’s friendship: every friendship has its wobbly moments. Live with it, I told myself. Get used to it. I remembered Sally years before in the car driving west, swirling her hand in that chaotic gesture, saying from now on the deaths would be easier. And I had a true friend, right? Yes, one true friend. A friend of immeasurable value. Because who else but Sally could ever love my prickly nugget of a soul?” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“So marriage was out for me now. I realized I’d spent a lot of my lifetime looking for a man, and now my searching days were over. A relief, really. A door closed. One less thing to worry about. Oh, I could live with someone. I could be a soul mate (me?), a lover, a squeeze, even a mother, but never again would I ever be a wife. I was free! I was almost giddy, standing in that crummy courtyard. I walked down the street to the Sugar Bowl and ordered a hot fudge sundae.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“Oh, the sound of the dirt hitting wood. I can still hear it years later. I think it’s the saddest sound I’ve ever heard.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“The follies of the people closest to you can be used as a kind of currency to buy your own allure.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“We looked at each other and laughed. In that instant, I had no fear that I would lose her. We had-we would always have-our past. We’d grown up together, in a way.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“I might as well have been a nun. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just stopped looking for partners. After a while, I sort of desexed myself.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘But with your children, you discover talents you didn’t know you had. You can make such a difference: point their way in the world, give them memories that’ll inform their lives years later.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘You can never shed your past, not really.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“There’s this loony idea-American, Christian-that what you do doesn’t ultimately matter, that anything can be forgiven and redeemed. I don’t buy it. Nothing disappears, nothing is cancelled out. A stain in the wood, meat on the hands, a virus in the cells. There’s things don’t go away. In the end, imperfectly but largely, you reap what you sow. I think in my life that’s all I’ve learned. “- Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘You could have a normal life. You could love a man who loves you and could see you every day. Really see you, not just you imagining he sees you. You could get married again! I was wrong to even start this. It’s my fault. I lie in bed at night and think, what am I doing? How can I do this to my family?’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“In the wings were guys. I had some wanton ways: a hockey player one weekend, a poet the next. I wasn’t a very good flirt (how could I be? With three big brothers, I knew the male mind), so I slept with them and got it over with. My logic went like this: sex is an enjoyable human activity, I’m human, X is human, why not have sex? There were certainly college guys grateful for a female with my attitude.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“I felt almost tingly with possibility. People become best friends with their roommates, lay in the dark and talked, got drunk together, lusted after guys, shared clothes. Years later they hoped for their children to go to college together.” – Best Friends by Martha Moody

“‘Invested? Have you thought about how invested we are in each other? Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I always think of you. Last week, I had a new patient call me a white bitch who enjoyed seeing people like her suffer, and you know what? I didn’t fall apart. I listened to her. I talked to her, and when she left, we had an understanding. And I felt proud, because I imagined you there watching me the whole time. I never do stupid things when I think of you watching me. How can you say we won’t see each other anymore? You’d be taking away a part of me. The good part of me.’” – Best Friends by Martha Moody