“You see, I don’t know why I did it,” he declared as if he hadjust discovered the cure for cancer. But the only thing he haddiscovered was yet another way to piss me off.”

“That's another thing that pisses me off about that Michelangelo statue of me in Florence. He's got me standing there uncircumcised! Who the fuck did he think I was?”

“Do you know a cure for me?""Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water.""Salt water?" I asked him."Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”

“You don’t really hate me…do you?” he asked.“Sometimes I wish that I did. It would make everything a whole hell of a lot easier.”“So what pisses you off more? What I did to make you wanna hate me? Or knowing that you can’t?”

“If Cassie was invalidated because she caught the disease, or because Fred suspected her of it, I can only imagine what he will do to me and to my family if he discovers that the cure did not work perfectly.”

“Don’t you see?” I said. “He could change every detail, but he couldn’t change her.” “But why?” His obtuseness frustrated me. “Because he was in love with her!” I said. “Because, to him, she was the only thing that was real.”