“We tell our stories, especially as young people, in part because we want them to be true. We want life to be full of adventure and creativity and daring that might, just might, be real.”

“We tell stories of other people's marriages, Detective Hastroll thought. We are experts in their parables and parabolas. Be can we tell the story of our own. If we could, Hastroll thought, there might be no murders. If we could, we might avoid our own cruelties and crimes.”

“We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie.”

“As we all know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we're afraid we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we're afraid that she might castrate us. The remedy is to gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people.”

“We wanted - no, we needed - to tell our stories, and more importantly, we needed our stories to be heard.”

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!”