“You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied.Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.”

“i don't need you. i never needed you.""well, i fucking needed you!”

“You came back fighting and furious at me. You told me you'd been looking for mermaids, and I interrupted you. [...] I said that next time, you had to take me with you.""Was there a next time?""Well, you tell me, you don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you?”

“she didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surplus jacket and combat bots, she did this without apology. It was a great irony that the very fact of a relationship with her would diminish her appeal, that the moment she came to love me back and depend on me as much as I depended on her, she would no longer be a truly independent spirit. No way in hell was I going to be the one to take that quality away from her.”

“Her hands quieted. "Yeah. Because even if the law says that no one is responsible for anyone else, helping someone who needs it is the right thing to do." I sat down beside her, close enough that the skin of her arm hummed right next to mine. "You really believe that?"She looked down at her lap "Yeah."Then how," I asked, "can you walk away from me?”

“Everything you said, Ellie, it's true. I should be very angry. I was, for a time, but now I'm not. Now I've gotten past my own selfishness to where I've got to help her. See, when you're Plain, you don't put yourself forward. You just don't do it, because that would be Hochmut–puffing yourself up–and the truth is there's always others more important than you. So Katie, when she hears others telling lies about her and this baby, she won’t want to fight back, or stand up for herself. I am here to stand up for her.”

“It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over. Had I ever really told her that?”