“I wish I could go visit them and talk in my own language, the English I knew before I grew thorns on my tongue.”

“And in your world, Captain Scary, that would mean? (Fang)You hit him three times and then you stop. It’s in English. Hell, it’s in –your- English. You were born then! (Thorn)That was my third hit. (Fang)I have a tumor. I know I have a tumor. I just wish I were mortal so that it could kill me. (Thorn)”

“I wish wish I could steal the intricacies of language. But give my kids a break—remember, most of them were fed on Steinbeck’s The Pearl. ”

“They take their punishment so well, so cheerfully: I go out with an adder in my heart, and an asp in my tongue, and every night I sow thorns in the garden of my soul.”

“As to my mouth, of all my features, I wish I could possess my mouth again, just as it had been before the fire. I had my mother’s lips, generous below and above; and what kissing I had practiced, mainly on my hand or on a lonely pig, had convinced me that my lips would be the source of my good fortune. I would kiss with them, and lie with them, I would make victims and willing slaves of anyone my eyes desired, simply by talking a little, and following the talk with kisses, and the kisses with demands. And they’d melt into compliance, everyone of them, happy to perform the most demeaning acts as long as I was there to reward them with a long, tongue-tied kiss when they were done. But the fire didn’t spare my lips; it took them too, erasing them utterly.”

“I wished I could share my own optimism.”