“Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.”

“Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Lonliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it know yourself... know what you want.”

“I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.Why not?"Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. (...) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette.”

“Now was too big, like a giant dark planet coming up over the horizon. she wanted then. That's what he'd seen that day, a brightness with darkness all around, watching her, as if she were glamorous, as if she were a rare and mysterious creature.”

“She wanted to wake up like Dorothy and see Michael's face peering over the side of the bed, laughing. WHY, YOU JUST HIT YOUR HEAD. But it was not a dream and there was no Kansas and he was never coming back.”

“We received our colouring from the Norsemen, hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees. We are the ones who sacked Rome. Fear only feeble old age and death in bed. Don't forget who you are.”

“You want car?' Rena said. 'Artist college? You think I don't know? How you think you pay? So this dress. Pretty dress. Someone gave. But money is . . .' She stopped, struggling to find the words, what money was. Finally, she threw her hands up. 'Money. You want remember, so just remember.”