“Tonight, I am a Perfect Girl, because I had a perfect night. And it ended with three perfect kisses. Three. What a lucky number.”

“Three is the number of those who do holy work;Two is the number of those who do lover's work;One is the number of those who do perfect evilOr perfect good.”

“the number 108 is held to be the most auspicious, a perfect three-digit multiple of three, its components adding up to 9, which is three threes. And 3, of course, is the number representing supreme balance.”

“I want tonight to be perfect for you. Just know that it's already been perfect for me.”

“I am Nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore I am perfect.”

“What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around the pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows. That was the moment. There has been no other.”