“How perfectly whimsical. I expect we’ll be roasting marshmallows over the fireplace and singing happy sing-alongs round about midnight, yes? Perhaps someone could point me in the direction of the dormitories.”

“The fire sings to the marshmallow, and the song turns the marshmallow brown because that's what marshmallows do when they're happy.”

“I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse.... To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing. It is to you, Tania, that I am singing. I wish that I could sing better, more melodiously, but then perhaps you would never have consented to listen to me. You have heard the others sing and they have left you cold. They sang too beautifully, or not beautifully enough.”

“How could someone with a bloody rag around their arm look that confident? Because he could sing someone to death?”

“And after, when it was bedtime, I would sing, “We love you, Conrad, oh yes we do. We love you, Conrad, and we’ll be true” into the bathroom mirror with a mouthful of toothpaste. I would sing my eight-nine-ten-year-old heart out. But I wasn’t singing to Conrad Birdie. I was singing to my Conrad. Conrad Beck Fisher, the boy of my preteen dreams.”

“At this point, a spaceship could land on Main Street and Elvis could saunter out singing "Love Me Tender," and I wouldn't be surprised”