“Chet suddenly wished she had quit teaching the class because of him, that he’d had any effect on her at all.”

“Yvette had never talked about her marriage - she was a smart girl, and she knew you had no right to complain about someone you got all the way to the altar with. You made that choice, even if you were a child when you did it, and the marriage vow was sacred.”

“She craved a family, not having had enough of one to understand what a pain in the ass it was.”

“His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him.”

“Now, alone on the roof, Valentine looked at her shoes and wished people would either stay or go away, but not constantly coming back and leaving again.”

“Children were experiments, and his had failed.”

“The force with which he wanted it both ways made him grit his teeth. What kind of fool wanted it only one way?”