“Before there was an American Story, before Paterson spread before Oscar and Lola like a dream, or the trumpets from the Island of our eviction had even sounded, there was their mother, Hypatia Belicia Cabral: a girl so tall your leg bones ached just looking at her, so dark it was as if the Creatrix had, in her making, blinked.”

“The dog, who had sounded so ferocious in the winter distances, was a female German Shepherd. She was shivering. Her tail was between her legs. She had been borrowed that morning from a farmer. She had never been to war before. She had no idea what game was being played. Her name was Princess.”

“The man who knelt before her would have sprung from her needles, even down the ghostly flecks of silver in his hair. She had not known before that she wanted all these things, that she preferred dark hair and a slightly cruel expression, that she wishes for tallness, or that a man kneeling might thrill her.”

“They did look tough - and tall. One girl in particular had legs like stilts. She was bent down, touching her toes with her ankles crossed. She looked like a grazing giraffe.”

“She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with his own.”

“When Pandora was ready, she was taken by Hermes to Epimetheus as a gift from Zeus.Epimetheus looked at the beautiful girl & asked her to remove her veil so that he could better admire her lovely face & he asked her to remove her girdle & white shimmering raiment so that he could appreciate the gifts of the Gods. As he had never seen a woman before. And Pandora grinned & put on an impish smile as she stood naked before him.”