“She once led this secret uprising to switch the voice boxes of Barbies and G.I. Joes. When they hit the shelves, G.I. Joe said, 'Let's go shopping!' and Barbie said, 'The enemy must be overtaken.'I laugh. "No way.""Yes way. Sex-role stereotyping in children's toys, all that.”

“Hundreds,' Joe says. 'Hundreds and hundreds. But then again, I'm old.'So old, Jesus was in your math class,' I say. I crack myself up.”

“I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.”

“If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.”

“There was something about her mouth that made me feel possibilities...the way a train ticket holds possibilities, the way a boat docked at sunset does, the way a voice on the radio announcing victory does. A mouth can have that it can seem brave, and bold. Finite and infinite. After a war, you need both of those things. "Why don't you kiss me, she said. "Celebrate a new world." And so I did. I could not forget that kiss. I still cannot. I put my fingertips to her face. Indeed,changed that day, but the change in life was no smaller or less significant. The moment took my sorrow and made it swarm the streets in victory, shouting in joy and rightness, and from that I have never quite recovered.”

“No, Mom. I said fine." "It's just your tone." Ah, yes- the tone. The nasty traitor.”

“What happened?" I ask. My heart hurts."That big guy," he says. His voice is high and tight. "Number forty-six. Jeez, he just bashed his shoulder right into my chest, and when I was on the ground, he steps on my leg with his cleat." He sniffs hard, rubs his nose on his sleeve, doesn't meet my eyes."That bastard," I say. "The minute he gets off the field I'm going to kick him in the balls." Oliver laughs a little, his eyes filling up at the same time. "He'll never know what hit him. His balls are gonna go flying, I promise you that. People will wish they brought their catcher's mitts.”