“That fist he was raising at me would wham into the cupboard door, hurting only himself. I saw it all happening, then it really did happen. But I didn't understand the whore thing. Why was he confusing the drinking with the other? Then I got it. Obvious. It was all mixed up for him, all the same thing: the drinking, the other, anything that could make a woman free.”

“It happened so long ago I can't even be sure it happened as I say it did. Stories change in the telling, memory makes up as much as it knows. We were very small. The things we saw were all mixed up with the things we dreamed and the things we were scared of.”

“In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not...”

“And then the Jamaican guy pulls out the sauce. "It be opening doors to other worlds, mon," he days. We made him do it first, saw that he didn't die. It seemed to make him pretty happy and then - Dave, the guy, I know I didn't really see this, but the guy shrunk himself, made himself three feet tall. We all laughed our asses off, then he was back to normal again.'And you still tried that shit?'Are you kidding? How could I not?”

“What the hell did you see in me?” He tilted his head to the side, studying her. It both thrilled her and made her uncomfortable, like he was looking right into her. “I saw you, Claire,” he finally said. “That was all. Just you. Everything about you. And the entire package was everything I wanted. I didn’t want it altered or changed one bit. I just saw…you.”

“I want to know why this is such a part of me. I want to know why this thing that happened to other people has happened so much to me. I keep looking for the lesson.”

“College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking..”