The following quotations are important at various points in the story: (Delacorte Press, 2001)

1.) I could tell the pants hadn't come into our lives because of tragedy. They'd just witnessed one of those regular but painful life transitions. That, it turns out, is The Way of the Pants.
(pg. 2; Carmen tells this to the reader in the Prologue to explain how the Sisterhood was formed.)

2.) Not All Who Wander Are Lost.
(pg. 1; quoted by J. R. R. Tokien, it is the first quote to introduce a chapter.)

3.) Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.
(pg. 26; this is an anonymous quote to introduce the second chapter.)

4.) Can you make yourself love? Can you make yourself be loved?
(pg. 38; this was said by Lena, the one who was most afraid to let herself love someone else.)

5.) She'd decided the morning after the vow of the Pants that she was going to record her summer of discontent in a movie - a suckumentary, a pastiche of lameness.
(pg. 43; This shows how Tibby was so frustrated with staying home with no friends.)

6.) There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
(pg. 46; quoted by Jerry Seinfeld, it introduces a chapter.)

7.) She felt the enormity of making them count.
(pg. 50; this shows Lena's thoughts as she becomes the first of the Sisterhood to wear the Pants.)

8.) . . . she realized she was like him in another way. When she was with him, she didn't like to say the hard things.
(pg. 61; Carmen thinks this after she is unable to tell her dad how badly she feels that he didn't give her any warning about his new family.)

9.) Love is like war: easy to begin, hard to end.
(pg. 62; this proverb is an introduction to another chapter.)

10.) I have seen the future and it's like the present, only longer.
(pg. 101; this quote is an introduction to another chapter.)

11.) K-Kostos is not a nice boy!
(pg. 110; Lena said this in panic when she thought Kostos was spying on her as she swam naked in the pond.)

12.) Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're bug.
(pg. 111; this quote by Mark Knopfler introduces a chapter.)

13.) If you feel like you're under control, you're just not going fast enough.
(pg. 125; this quote by Mario Andretti introduces a chapter.)

14.) She knew she should have toned it down. Why was it so hard for her to stop?
(pg. 131; this thought of Bee foreshadows that she will race full speed into a situation that is not good for her.)

15.) You can't just abandon your family.
(pg. 147l this line is ironic, because Carmen makes this comment and the later does exactly that.)

16.) He was a caricature of a caricature of a loser.
(pg. 150; this is Tibby's first reaction to Brian McBrian and is ironic, because she will come to realize that he is anything but a loser.)

17.) Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
(pg. 158; this quote by Frieda Norris introduces a chapter.)

18.) You antagonize people.
(pg. 162; this was said by Paul to Carmen and emphasizes what she has yet to see about herself.)

19.) Tibby wondered, with a swelling sadness in her throat, how many of the ten thousand movies Margaret had watched with another person.
(pg. 167; Tibby thought this about lonely Margaret who sold tickets at the movie theater.)

20.) Even in the Pants she was invisible and mute.
(pg. 179; Carmen felt this way after the family didn't even react to her leaving the bridesmaid fitting.)

21.) Of the thirty-six ways of avoiding disaster, running away is best.
(pg. 180; this anonymous quote introduces a chapter.)

22.) You will make all kinds of mistakes: but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.
(pg. 201; this quote by Winston Churchill introduces a chapter.)

23.) Before now she thought he'd barged into her special place. Now she knew she had barged into his.
(pg. 204; Lena realizes this when she discovers Kostos swimming naked in what she thought was her pond.)

24.) Guilt, like the cat she'd never had, wove around her legs and hopped up onto the bed to insinuate itself at close range.
(pp. 210-211; Carmen uses this metaphor to express how badly she feels about how she handled in anger at her father.)

25.) . . . She was said that people like Bea and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.
(pg. 221; Lena feels this way about herself after she hears why Kostos had left America to live with his grandparents in Greece.)