“I was usually hungry enough to eat what I was given without comment, but if the Earl served boiled tongue or calves' foot jelly, I fully intended to wrap it in my napkin and hide it in the nearest umbrella stand.”

“There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap. One is that food might spill in your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing. The other is that it can serve as a perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosey enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there.”

“I was gazing at a cup of cocoa on my night table. As I focused on the thick brown skin that had formed upon its surface like ice on a muddy pond something at the root of my tongue leapt like a little goat and my stomach turned over. There are not many things that I despise but chiefest among them is skin on milk. I loathe it with a passion. Not even the thought of the marvelous chemical change that forms the stuff—the milk’s proteins churned and ripped apart by the heat of boiling then reassembling themselves as they cool into a jellied skin—was enough to console me. I would rather eat a cobweb.”

“I felt like I had lost something. But not something silly, like my keys or my gum; more like my arm or my foot, something that really mattered. Like something that I could live without, but would make life much harder if it were missing. And life is hard enough. Life is hard enough with everything we're given.”

“I eat overcast skies for breakfast, because sunlight isn’t filling enough. As a lover, I’m a bring-my-own-umbrella kind of guy, because a soup bowl doesn’t offer enough space or protection.”

“I will be strong enough to go without the tablet. But there are other things I’m not strong enough to go without, and I intend to fight for them. (Cassia Reyes)”