“the sort of kid who steered his bicycle around snakes crossing the road”

“He had lived as a handful of taffy between his mother and his father all his life, had been pulled in so many directions, stretched here and there, that all he could do was plaster a mighty smile on his face.”

“She knew for certain there were all kinds of people who craved their youth, who would run like gazelles toward that fishhook of time, peeling off the years like old imagined skins.”

“talking above the pain of his broken heart”

“Who the hell ain't dysfunctional these days? When the Kennedys straighten out, then maybe the rest of us should worry.”

“Sometimes, in the dark of night, when no one else could hear him but me, he'd cry out, like he was fighting some silent little war in his head.”

“This is what keeps ghosts locked to the earth, that sweet burning need for something they loved and gave up too soon.”