“You're half a world awayBut in my mind I whisper every single word you sayAnd before you sleep at nightYou pray to me your lucky star, your singing satellite”

“The job of every generation is to discover the flaws of the one that came before it. That's part of growing up, figuring out all the ways your parents and their friends are broken.”

“We should be able to time travel," he said. "Back to an age when society was kinder to the Rubenesque woman.""Hmph." I wasn't able to say much."I'd love that. I love softness. Love curves. The more, the better.""D'you really?""Why wouldn't I? Think of all the words associated with a bit of extra flesh. Generous. Ample. Voluptuous. Bountiful. Beautiful, sensual words. Contrast them with their opposites. Mean. Insufficient. Meager. Miserly."I snuffled into his velvet jerkin or doublet or whatever it was and looked up at him. "You should be a professional morale booster," I told him. "You're very kind to say all this but --""Kind?" he burst out. "No, I'm not kind! I don't feel sorry for you. I want you.”

“... he said it felt like walking into another century, being there, looking up at the mullion windows, all darkened now, and the castellated towers that rose up out of the clutch of the ivy. "And you," he said, "you look like the heroine of a nineteenth-century novel, with your beautifully serious face and your grave, grey eyes. So do you have a suitably romantic story to tell?”

“He didn't mean to corner me, but when you're as tall and wide as he is and I'm as little as I am, merely standing beside me constitutes menacement.”

“I don't think that now: half of everything is something, not nothing. Lots of somethings”

“My father is a liar and so am I.But I’m going to stop. I have to stop.I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight. No lies, no omissions.That’s my promise.This time I truly mean it.”