“My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.”

“This wasn't the way I had imagined my adventures, but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came. Maybe someday my arms and legs would thicken with muscle and the fear would drain away like dirty bathwater. I wish I believed these things would happen, but I didn't. ”

“You have not been sticking your dirty fingers in my sauce,’’ Eve said, and pointed her wooden spoonat him.He quickly took the finger out of his mouth. ‘‘First off, they’re not dirty. I licked them first.”

“Unlike humanity, my mind isn't so frail as to simply climb under gravity and submit to God.”

“It's not my fault so much as my genius,”

“I grabbed Aunt Prue's tiny hand, her fingers as small as bare twigs in winter. I closed my eyes and took her other hand, twisting my strong fingers together with her frail ones. I rested my forehead against our hands and closed my eyes. I imagined lifting my head up and seeing her smiling, the tape and tubes gone. I wondered if wishing was the same thing as praying. If hoping for something badly enough could make it happen.”