“I realize that nothing is really normal. All it takes to alter normalcy is a death or a birth. Or just some misguided fear, love, or loneliness that never goes away.”

“I used to fear their deaths--the car! the dog! the sea! the germ!--until I realized it need never be a problem: on the trolley, on the way to the mortuary, I would put my hands into their ribs and take their hearts and swallow them, and give birth to them again, so that they would never, ever end.”

“For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.”

“Nothing ever really goes away--it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.”

“Sex Ed - when I finally got to take it - was all about biology and birth control and nothing about anything that actually goes on between people.”

“The boy admonished himself for wanting everything to be a story. And now realized that some journeys were not stories. On some journeys, nothing really happened. You just kept taking steps.”