“It was as if the room beyond the blast furnace was a tub and someone had turned the faucets on the cold and hot running snakes.”

“Live pretty or die laughing, but don't you run. Don't you fucking run.”

“I guess Satan was the first superhero [...] In his first adventure, he took the form of a snake to free two prisoners being held naked in a Third World jungle prison by an all-powerful megalomaniac. At the same time, he broadened their diet and introduced them to their own sexuality.”

“Oh, now don't act like the idea is so terrible. When you come down to it, what could be more romantic than a few hours of scrambling around in a cold, dripping hole known for occasionally flooding and drowning people?”

“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.”

“You know someone for a while and then one day a hole opens underneath them, and they fall out of your world.”

“She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.”