“I'd choked back so many tears, they'd become a lake of sadness in my belly.”

“They weren't tears of sadness or even tears of joy. I was just overflowing. Like so many things since I'd been here, I didn't yet understand it, but I felt it.”

“It had been many months since I'd shed tears for Tomaso, but grief is like that. It's not a continuous process; it comes in waves. You can keep it at bay for a time, like a dam holding back a lake, but them something triggers an explosion inside of you, shattering the wall and letting loose a flood.”

“He gestured at me. “That’s Belly.”“Belly?” she repeated.“Yup. She’s my girlfriend.”I think I choked out loud.”

“I was dead.I was so,so dead.I was going to be expelled and then I'd never get into Georgetown,and I'd work at the diner for the rest of my life and lend would marry the dyrad lab assistant and they'd have half-tree-and-one-quarter-water-thing babies,and no one would know quite what they were,but they'd be beautiful.And I'd serve them French fries when they came home to visit.”

“I had no eyelashes left. So when I cried, the tears rolled down, unabated to my mouth. My saliva tasted those days, like a salt lake. Or so he said.'('Left from Dhakeshwari')”