“It's a proclamation he regards as complete absolution from answering...as if his last name was Bush, he was eighteen, and there was a draft going on.”

“His first name is Brooks, but his last name isn’t. His last name is Wrinkled, unlike his shirt (he isn’t wearing one).”

“It was only as he put his hand on the door that he became aware of complete silence beyond it, a silence which he at eighteen knew that it would take more than one person to make.”

“He had a last name for a first name, and a last name for a last name, but only because it came after his first name (the one that sounds like a last name). Otherwise, his last name would sound like a first name.”

“His last name was Morris, but I called him Mars, because it’s like he was from another planet, like Venus. He was a cross dresser.”

“Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name.”