“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.”

“I screamed. You told me not to.” He rubs at the soot on one hand with his thumb, then stares at it. “The dirt,” he says, his voice strangely peaceful.“What about it?” she asks. “It’s dirty.”

“She glances back before stepping into the alley, and she catches her grandfather looking at her the way he does sometimes--as if she's already gone, as if he's practicing sorrow.”

“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.”

“Our stories are what we have,” Our Good Mother says. “Our stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?”

“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.”

“So far, I should be calm and more specifically not like that...Anything else? Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I´ve got some tools”