“The gasoline flowing through the pump made a high pitched sound, as if the screaming of my family was still dissolved in it" [p.181].”

“The future looks like gasoline. . . . crude oil . . . is the future before it has been refined. It is like a dream of the future, really, and like any dream it ends with a rude awakening.”

“Competing in an Olympics didn't scare her now. The thought of stepping up into the full roar of the crowd, in London, seemed simple and natural and good. It was ordinary days now that frightened her - endless Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons of real life, the days you had to steer through without the benefit of handlebars. Off the bike she was like a smoker without cigarettes, never sure what to do with her hands. As soon as she got off the bike, her heart was expected to perform all these baffling secondary functions - like loving someone and feeling something and belonging somewhere - when all she'd ever trained it to do was pump blood.”

“Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn't the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn't deserve my own pity.”

“Off the bike she was like a smoker without cigarettes, never sure what to do with her hands. As soon as she got off the bike, her heart was expected to perform all these baffling secondary functions like loving someone and feeling something and belonging somewhere - when all she'd ever trained it to do was pump blood.”

“...and I laughed and laughed and laughed until the sound of the sea was drowned.”

“She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey.”