“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”

“You can always count on your family to love you. And to betray you. And then to feel guilty about it.”

“You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want. ”

“Baby," she says in a harsh whisper, "in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.”

“She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.”

“I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.”

“It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.”