“I'm Teoish," Sarene said, successfully spearing something that looked like a marinated piece of shrimp. "We're all this tall.""Father's Teoish too, Kaise," Daorn said. "And you know how tall he is.""But father's fat," Kaise pointed out. "Why aren't you fat too, Sarene?”

“You see, to tall men I'm a midget, and to short men I'm a giant; to the skinny ones I'm a fat man, and to the fat ones I'm a thin man.”

“I'm beginning to think that you aren't with child. You've simply become fat after reading too many recipes.”

“Lance told me his father didn’t think much of him. “He wishes I was better. More better. At everything. I don’t do anything right, you know, Stevie. Nothing.” He said this matter-of-factly. He believed it as truth. Polly told me her father never said anything nice to her, but she kept trying as hard as she could to make him pay her some attention. “He always says, ‘Don’t get fat as your mother has,’ but I don’t think Mom’s fat at all, but I try not to eat much, but he keeps saying it to me. Do you think I’m fat, Stevie? When my hair is messy do you think I look like a stray...”

“No one ever complained about a fat brain. No one ever accused their brain of being too short or too tall, too wide or too narrow. Or ugly. It either worked or it didn't, and mine worked just fine.”

“She IS too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin.”