“They shouldn't call death passing on. They should call it leveling up. Because the game only got harder once I lost. And I was more than a little worried it had only just begun.”

“People always sounded worried when I called them. Maybe because I only ever called a lot of them when I was in trouble and needed help. I needed to set up more lunch dates or have more parties, to cure people of the idea that a call from me automatically equaled danger. Then again, that was probably a lost cause.”

“But the only game she wanted to play was Kidnapper, where she tied me up and left me in my own tree house for about twelve hours, until Dad climbed up and got me down. Why hadn’t I at least called for help? I had. But no one had heard me. Probably because of the gag in my mouth.”

“I had been tricked once by that Cheat called love, but the Game was over...”

“I never got to call myself a door-to-door salesman, because, regrettably, I only ever went to one door. But one day I just might knock on another door, to be able to proudly say that I was once a door-to-door salesman.”

“Like a bicycle, like a wheel that, once rolling, is stable only so long as it keeps moving but falls when its momentum stops, so the game between a man and woman, once begun, can exist only so long as it progresses. If the forward movement today is no more than it was yesterday, the game is over.”