“I sighed; as comforting as it may be to some of us, sarcasm, like youth, is wasted on the young.”

“The students we saw were all bright, attractive, and polite, and the teachers all seemed to be smart and dedicated, and I began to appreciate the benefits of a private school education. If only I'd had the opportunity to attend a place like this, who knows what I might have become? Perhaps instead of a mere blood-spatter analyst who slunk away at night to kill without conscience, I could have become a doctor, or a physicist, or even a senator who slunk away at night to kill without conscience. It was terribly sad to think of all my wasted potential.”

“It was indeed a long wait, well over two hours. I sat in the car and listened to the radio and tried to picture, bite by bite, what it was like to eat a medianochesandwich: the crackle of the bread crust, socrisp and toasty it scratches the inside of your mouth as you bite down. Then the first taste of mustard, followed by the soothing cheese and the salt of the meat. Next bite—a piece of pickle. Chew it all up; let the flavors mingle. Swallow. Take a big sip of Iron Beer (pronounced Ee-roan Bay-er, and it’s a soda). Sigh. Sheer bliss. I would rather eat than do anything else except play with the Passenger. It’s a true miracle of genetics that I am not fat.”

“That's why I liked him, I think. Another guy pretending to be human, just like me.”

“Now I know what it is like to feel like a total idiot.”

“She had searched for just the right guy; sensitive and gentle and willing to wait. Quite a long search, of course. She was looking for some imaginary man who cared more about having someone to talk to and see movies with than he needed to have sex, because she was just Not Ready for That. Did I say imaginary? Well yes. Human men are not like that.”

“For the first time I could remember, I felt weak, woozy and stupid— like a human-being. Like a very small and helpless human-being.”