“When a zashiki warashi came to live with you, good fortune smiled upon the whole house.”

“One warm morning in July, a ghost came to our breakfast table.”

“Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.”

“And you want more holes because you think pain will distract you from all the annoying celebrating? Or because stabbing me will make you feel better?""Something like that." She smiled enigmatically, went into the bathroom, and came out with a wad of cotton balls and a safety pin.”

“If I were your mother, I would also warn you to beware of buildings that claim to be the houses of God. If heard it said once, jokingly, that on their days off, when they are not actively intervening in human affairs or shoring up the sweetness of the earth, the orishas get together in a little apartment in a poor section of Havana around a very big screen television and laugh themselves silly a the unceasing soap opera that is our lives, all the while puffing on good Cuban cigars and swigging cheap rum. And, darling, whether you imagine one big white distant god or many more particular brown ones who like their little pleasures, I would tell you to get off your butt and out of the house if you want to make contact. If you go to a mausoleum, you'll find dead bodies. Living gods inhabit a living world.”

“Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun, and you might meet 'em both if you show up here not welcome, son.”

“Love wasn’t something you decided. It was thrust upon you at the most inopportune times in your life. You didn’t choose when or who to love, love chose you.”