“A father is a hard thing to compass.”

“What else she doesn't know: that the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again.”

“Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.”

“Ramfis fled the country after Trujillo's death, lived dissolutely off his father's swag, and ended up dying in a car crash of his own devising in 1969; the other car he hit contained the Duchess of Albuquerque, Teresa Beltrán de Lis, who died instantly; Lil'Fuckface went on murdering right to the end.”

“If you ask me I don't think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That's enough.”

“Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.”

“Don't panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your hair like the whiteboys do even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.”