“I'm eclectic,' she said to the HDs once and I could see them trying to work out where she plugged in.”

“Try an’ try,” he said, “but when it comes day’s end, I can’t wash the pig off me. And your mother never complains. Not once, in all these years, has she ever said that I smell strong. I said once to her that I was sorry.” “What did Mama say?” “She said I smelled of honest work, and that there was no sorry to be said or heard.”

“All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake.”

“A friend once told me that she understood pity as 'I'm sorry for you', whereas compassion is 'I feel your pain because I see that you could be me and I could be you'.”

“I could see that she was eager to please and impress me, and I was excited to see someone so excited to try to excite me. In all the excitement I forgot where I was, who I was, and why I was trying to kill her.”

“A friend of mine once said that she didn't believe in coincidence, that it was God working in her life, not a coincidence every time something unexpected worked out.”