“We strove for a name,while the light of the lamps burnt thinand the outer dawn came in,a ghost, the last at the feastor the first,to sit withinwith the two that remainedto quibble in flowers and verseover a girl's name.”

“He had a last name for a first name, and a last name for a last name, but only because it came after his first name (the one that sounds like a last name). Otherwise, his last name would sound like a first name.”

“She knows that making it to the orphanage in the city is the only chance Usha has. Usha, dawn. The name came to her in the quiet hours of early morning after the midwife left them alone. It echoed in her mind as she gazed at her baby girl, trying to memorize every detail of her face. Amid the first rays of light that crept into the hut, as the cocks crowed the daybreak, Kavita silently named her daughter.”

“First name; mister. Middle name; dot. Last name; TEE.”

“His first name is Brooks, but his last name isn’t. His last name is Wrinkled, unlike his shirt (he isn’t wearing one).”

“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.”