“Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing.”

“You can’t blame a fella for kissing the prettiest girl in New York, can you, sister?” Sam’s grin was anything but apologetic. Evie brought up her knee quickly and decisively, and he dropped to the floor like a grain sack. “You can’t blame a girl for her quick reflexes now, can you, pal?”

“People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can surprise you.”

“People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.”

“Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?” “Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.”

“I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.”

“You can never know about about your own destiny: are the people you meet there to play a part on your oun destiny, or do you exist just to play a role in theirs?”