“And then, before he told me, I knew what it was. The old ptitsa who hadall the kots and koshkas had passed on to a better world in one of the cityhospitals. I'd cracked her a bit too hard, like. Well, well, that waseverything. I thought of all those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko andgetting none, not any more from their starry forella of a mistress. That waseverything. I'd done the lot, now and me still only fifteen.”

“...if he didn't fully understand where I came from, he understood who I was now -- he knew how well done I liked my steak, knew the color of my toothbrush, the expression I made when I realized I'd forgotten to roll up my car window before it rained.”

“I knew damn well if Lucy broke up with me I'd still love her until I turned to dust.”

“He was looking at me, jsut as I'd thought he would be, but like Bert's, his light was not what I expected. No pity, no sadness: nothing had changed. I realized all the times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought one I wore, the feelings only I felt.”

“I was harder than Dante. I think I'd tried to hide that hardness from him because I'd wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn't hard.”

“A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, 'Oh great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done.”