“When we were first married, I thought he must have been the most heartless, hateful man I'd ever known, but he was just as much a prisonor as I was. Where Vaughn imprisoned me with walls, he imprisoned his son with ignorance.”

“And then I wonder, does my brother think of me this way? We entered this world together, one after the other, beats in a pulse. But I will be first to leave it. That's what I've been promised. When we were children, did he dare to imagine an empty space beside him where I then stood giggling, blowing soap bubbles through my fingers? When I die, will he be sorry that he loved me? Sorry that we were twins? Maybe he already is.”

“Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky.”

“Love unrequited is violent. He loves you so much that he's turned it into hate.”

“I wanted to be rid of him," he says. He raises my chin with his thumb. "But not if it meant being rid of you. I climbed in beside you, and you put your head in my lap. You can't think I would have left you like that.""Look what it got you," I say."Tea in bed and you here in front of me," he says. "It was a terrible decision, and I confess I'd make it again.”

“But instead of tears, when I press my face against the pillow, a horrible, primal scream comes out of me. It's unlike anything I thought myself capable of. Rage, unlike anything I've ever known.”

“My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.”