“Seerow's kindness. Even then, all those years ago, i knew. My father's epitaph had just been written.”

“All those years I'd kept an outline of my father in my head, like a chalk line enclosing a father-shaped space. When I was little, I'd coloured it in often enough. But those colours had been too bright and the outline had been too large...”

“But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.”

“I am Fried Quiero Loud Babcock (not bad cock), and I am here for the ranch dressing your father promised my father, 53 years ago. Kindly pour some on my salad and I’ll be on my way.”

“And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.”

“Nobody can help me, those are my secrets, scarring my soul just as surely as that razor blade scarred my thighs all those years ago.”