“Christ on crackers, she'd barely gotten over finding out about the others: if she had to start believing aliens were real, too, she was finished. she'd stab herself in the heart with a blue pencil just see if she didn't."-Corinne D'Alessandro”

“she fought back an urge to curl her finger s into claws or slap a sign on luc's back reading, MINE! and just in case they missed seeing that one, she'd put another, permanent one someplace lower. but now that she had time to thin the second tattoo wouldn't be on his ass, and it wouldn't be made of chocolate, and - damn it-Corinne D'Alessandro”

“It didn't matter. If she was to have any hope of saving Bellusdeo and Maggaron now, she needed to finish what she started; the anger and the self-recrimination would just have to wait. She'd no doubt she'd return to it later; unlike laundry, she'd never left self-recrimination undone.”

“But although she was with family and friends, she'd never felt more alone. She felt as if she'd lost a vital part of herself and she had - her heart.”

“What she did know, unfortunately, was that she had to reconsider everything she'd ever willed herself to believe about her husband.”

“She hoped Smoke was wrong about people being unknowable. She hoped that she could crack herself open like a nut and know herself, at least. Then she'd be able to start figuring out everybody else.”