“Yolanda, nicknamed Yo in Spanish, misunderstood Joe in English, doubled and pronounced like the toy, Yoyo - or when forced to select from a rack of personalized keychains, Joey.”

“Mocho was a Spanish word that meant maimed or referred to something that had been lopped off like a stump. To call Homer el mocho was, essentially, to call him "Stumpy" or "the maimed one." It doesn't sound particularly flattering, but among Spanish speakers the giving of nicknames is tantamount to a declaration of love. Things that would sound insulting outright in English were tokens of deep affection when said in Spanish.”

“I checked my phone messages. Three in all. The first was from Joe. “Hey, Cupcake.” That was it. That was the whole message. The second was from Ranger. “Yo.” Ranger made Joe look like a chatterbox.”

“In his entirely personal experience of them, English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was from the streets. Which is to stay, stab his heart and it would bleed French, slice his brain open and its convolutions would be lined with English and German, and touch his hands and they would feel Spanish.”

“Because Spanish is a feeling-based language that comes first from the heart, just as English is a thinking-based language that comes first from the head.”

“And practice this: ‘Yo no soy una puta.’” Kyle said the words in an angry, accented voice.Livia raised a sensitive, red, now-thin eyebrow at her sister.“It means ‘I am not a hooker’ in Spanish. And you already know it in English, so you should be good.”