“My parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.”

“And to whom were these bundles of unrecognizably mashed-up mortgages ultimately sold? Quite often, to you and me. Our pension funds, municipalities, and money-market accounts were made up largely of these “mortgage-backed securities.”

“We both know dad was my parental trash can, the fatherly receptacle on whom I dumped my emotions.”

“In friendships I had been most fortunateYet never saw I one whom I would callMore willingly my friend”

“Thousands of persons, many of whom never darkened the door of a college, have learned to read books that most of our college graduates fear to tackle. teachers who understand this fact can help a student read the books that educated the Founding Fathers but not by explaining in lectures what the author would have said if he had been as bright as the lecturer.”

“It had been a little over a year since the last murder; moreover it had been a year since I had run as quickly as legally possible from whom I had been. It had taken almost that long to become a legal adult, get the money straightened out and get my name changed. Who was Abigail? Who was Vera? I felt as though I was neither person. I felt like I wasn’t a person at all anymore.”