“Beauty, you can find it here if you look hard enough.”

“How do you know me?" she says.He looks at her through his narrow eyes. "I was," he says."You were what?" she asks."I was," he says again. "And now I'm not.”

“She knows that whispers can be useful. Sometimes they contain real information. But usually they're fairy tales and lies. This is the worst kind of whisper, the kind that draws you in, gives you hope.”

“First, you hand over some basics--overwhelming joy, existential angst, a giving-in to desire, etc. And then you promise to withstand talking idly about the weather, to encourage cliché, to uphold the virtues of average. You hand over the need to be understood and, in return, you get a bar of Normal soap. And you can wash in it and be daily reborn to a safe world of modest, enduring love or, at least, mild, well-mannered bonding.”

“And I knew that I loved him with more than a nod. I loved him with a rush of tenderness, a lion's share. (Is that ever enough?)I wanted to survive. I had to. I never called.”

“Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?”

“Finally she said, "When I grow up, I'm going to live out here. I'll probably be a Miss Somebody, too..."Don't grow up," I told her. "It only gets more confusing.”