“He was carrying a suitcase with clothing in order to stay and another just like it with almost two thousand letters that she had written him. They were arranged by date in bundles ties with colored ribbons, and they were all unopened.”

“If love were a color, it’d be transparent, like all women’s clothing should be.”

“If she had been born in another place, during another time, he supposed she might have been the sort of girl who concerned herself with boyfriends and parties and fashionable clothes. If she had lived in a Boston arcology or a Beijing super tower, perhaps. Instead, she carried scars, and her hand was a stump, and her eyes were hard like obsidian, and her smile was hesitant, as if anticipating the suffering that she knew awaited her, just around the corner.”

“For a moment she just stared, wondering if there were another girl staying here, or if Sebastian had taken to cross-dressing.”

“She had to give her teachers credit: they were right to insist all pupils carry scissors, handkerchiefs, perfume and hair ribbons at all times. At some point she'd learn why they also required a red lace doily and a lemon.”

“That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.”