“I lay in bed the night before the fishing trip and thought it over, about my being deaf, about the years of not letting on I heard what was said, and I wonder if I can ever act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.”

“I had to keep on acting deaf if i wanted to hear at all.”

“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.”

“Don't say anything. Just act cool," I whispered.Mavkel started to shiver."Like this?" it asked."No, I mean act calm."Mavkel stopped shivering.”

“The most difficult thing about writing, I'm discovering, is not the act of constructing the sentences themselves. It's deciding what to put in, and where, and what to leave out. I'm constantly second-guessing myself. I chose the accident, but I could just as easily have started with any point during my thirty-five years of life before that. Why not start with: " I was born in the year 19-, in the city of -?”

“I've been the way he's being now, acting tough about things that really hurt me, and I can see right through to the truth. ”