“Eriko raised me that way," he said, laughing. "If I didn't open the door for her, she'd get mad and refuse to get in the car.""Even though she was a man!" I said, laughing."Right, right, even though she was a man.”

“She raised her head again. "Aren't you supposed to come over all manly man and forbid the little lady from taking such risks with her fragile self?" "I like my balls right where they are," he said, and she laughed and put her head back down on his chest.Kate Shugak to Jim Chopin Though Not Dead”

“I said to her "I won't be happy if I get in and you don't," and Mara gave a look and said "Yes you will.". I realized that she was right and that needing people and caring about them were two very different things. I tucked this thought inside me like a fortune into a cookie. It was a secret and it made me feel powerful, even though I didn't understand why.”

“...even though you said yes to the wrong man, I hope that won't cause you to say no to the right one.”

“I let one of the men rename me. A man gave me the name Rose – you didn’t know that, did you, Poke?…He said, this man, he said that Kwan was too hard to remember, even though it’s a good name and it means ‘spirit,’ and that the rose was the queen of flowers and I was the queen of Patpong.” She laughs, rough as a cough. “The queen of Patpong. A kingdom of whores and viruses. Death with a smile.”

“Sometimes I don't get you,' I said. She didn't even glance at me. She just smiled toward the television and said, 'You never get me. That's the whole point.”