“It won't matter if nobody ever thinks I'm pretty (although sometimes I wish, just for a second, that somebody would)”

“You think you're the foreigner here, and I'm the American, and I just look the other way while the President or somebody sends down this and that . . . to torture people with. But nobody asked my permission, okay? Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner, too.”

“Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty. . . I couldn't stand it if you boys were inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there's nobody like her...”

“Dear Sweetheart, do you ever think of me? Just the other day I was thinking of you. I'm pretty sure it was you.”

“I love having a ceiling fan, although sometimes I wish he wouldn't cheer so loud when I'm trying to sleep.”

“Nobody ever sees this part,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s pretty.”“So it’s like track six on an album,” Cole said.”