“They’re like the opposites poles of my personality. Mild-mannered, responsible Reese is who I used to be, while in-your-face Olivia’s who I want to be—with a few sharp edges dulled.”

“Margaret is the first person who understands that my dull universe is the place where self-loathing blends with sitcoms and dullness like vaseline coats everything I see. She's the first person I've ever really liked who wasn't me.”

“Who wants a bag of bones?” he said, with absolute sincerity. “I don’t want to hurt myself on the sharp edges of the woman I’m bedding.”

“The author would also like to acknowledge makers of comic book villains and superheroes, those who invented, or at least popularized, the notion of the normal, mild-mannered person transformed into a mutant by freak accident.”

“I just wanted one person who would look at me and not want to see someone else.”“Who looks at you like that?” I lift my head up and lower my hands so I can see her face, and I can’t imagine anyone looking at this girl and wanting to see anything but her.“Everyone who loves me.”“Who is it they want to see?“A dead girl.”

“There’s a writer for you,” he said. “Knows everything and at the same time he knows nothing.” [narrator]It was my first inkling that he was a writer. And while I like writers—because if you ask a writer anything you usually get an answer—still it belittled him in my eyes. Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. It’s like actors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean backward trying—only to see their faces in the reflecting chandeliers.”