“All my work will explode inside my body, each fragment of my anatomy will acquire a life of its own, outside mine, Humberto won’t exist, only these monsters, the despot who imprisoned me at La Rinconada to force me to invent him, Ines’s honey complexion, Brigida’s death, Iris Mateluna’s hysterical pregnancy, the saintly girl who was never beatified, Humberto Penaloza’s father pointing out Don Jeronimo dressed up to go to the Jockey Club, and your benign, kind hand, Mother Benita, that does not and will not let go of mine, and your attention fixed on these words of a mute, and your rosaries, the Casa’s La Rinconada as it once was, as it is now, as it was afterwards, the escape, the crime, all of it alive in my brain, Peta Ponce’s prism refracting and confusing everything and creating simultaneous and contradictory planes, everything without ever reaching paper, because I always hear voices and laughter enveloping and tying me up.”

“The girl is not yours, or mine, or anyone’s. But for now, she travels under my protection, and let him who lays a hand on her answer to me.”

“You ran into my life, this beautiful, amazing girl who changed everything. I finally saw what my world could be. What being normal and happy could look like. You’ve given me everything I never thought I could have! It scares to me think of life without you. Of not seeing your smile or hearing your voice.”

“I am unlike most other people because I began, not in the body of my mother, but in the brain of my father. He invented me, you see. He sat down one day and dreamed me up. -- The Girl With Borrowed Wings”

“You’re mine,” I told him, kissing each of his eyes before I looked at him. “No one gets you anymore; no one touches you anymore. Right?”He nodded, and I felt his heated breath fan over my face. “Put me up against this wall.”“No.” I shook my head. “No one sees you but me. No one hears you but me. All of you, your skin, your smell, your cum, all of it is mine, and especially your voice when you scream my name.”

“I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it -- it wan't Will's. It was mine.”