“She took the posters downtown that afternoon. She filled a rolling suitcase with them ... she took a stapler. And a box of staples. And hope. I think of those things. The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape, the hope. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and hop.”

“The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and tape.”

“There had been a problem in Bean's house. The problem was staples. Bean loved staples. She loved them so much that she had stapled things that weren't supposed to be stapled. The things looked better stapled, but her mother didn't think so, and now Bean was outside.She was going to be outside for a long time.”

“I gripped the stapler even harder and felt like a fool planning to battle a crazy man with a stapler that even, I suddenly remembered, contained no staples. Well, strike that line of defense.”

“Other girls carried tasers or pepper spray for safety. Rosa had bought herself a stapler in a hardware store on the corner of Baltic and Clinton Streets. Her thinking was simple. An electric shock is nasty but leaves no marks. With her method, though, she could put two or three staples into any attacker’s body. Then he’d have to stop and decide whether to tangle with her or start getting the staples out of his skin.”

“The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.”