"The Best of Everything" [.]

[fiefoe]

The only HEA:  (the rest of the book was understandably anticlimactic)

• Some girls know that there is a fifth season in New York, the season of the Summer Bachelor.
• She held her fingers stiffly in his, and when he pressed them she did not respond. "This isn't a pass," he said quietly. "It's just a braille the sighted have worked out for things they've realized they can't see."
• A busy man in the middle of the working day had stopped to say a few meaningless things on the telephone because he wanted to; the day stopped for a moment and went on. It was that pause that made all the rest worthwhile.
• They stopped at the doorway to the bed-room, arms around each other, looking at those two ridiculous narrow beds and each of them beginning to smile at the same time. "Decisions," Sidney said, "nothing but decisions."
• How could you expect someone else to go on feeling the same way you had for all those months? It was too much for any rational person to hope for.
  

Much before "Sex and the City":
    "I'm not cynical, I'm practical. I'm going to start making a list of all the money I've given out for wedding and baby parties, and when I get married-if I ever do-believe me, I'm going to get it all back."
    "None of us is responsible for the wonderful people we don't meet; we're only lucky when we do meet them."

Ultimately, what girls want:

• Every thought she had seemed important because he would understand, every idea important because he would be so quick to respond.
• She had wanted to be conventional, he had said, but with an unusual person.
  

boulevardier, garter-snapper; pronunciamentos, a drip, soupy

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