“Hormones are very powerful things. We are helpless in their wake.”

“Book light,” Grandma grumbles as I hurry her away from Dad’s boss and his wife. “Who the hell wantsa book light?”“Lots of people,” I say. “They are very handy things to have.”

“When something horrible happens, it's human nature to want to blame it on someone. We want someone to be held accountable, even though sometimes things just happen.”

“Look, Mr. uh, Wulf I appreciate your trying to warn me about this, Ireally do. But there's no such thing as vampires. They're made-up. We writers made them up. I'm sorry we did such a good job that we made the whole world paranoid, but it's true. They're fictional. Blame Bram Stoker. He started it.”

“The first thing we did was change all the clocks so that her siblings thought it was bedtime, then put them to bed ignoring their plaintive protests that they were not tired. They wept themselves to sleep soon enough.”

“It’s one thing to protect yourself,” Dad yelled at me during our very next lunch. “That I get. Have I ever told you not to defend yourself? No. But did you have to permanently maim him? I spent all that money on that on that fancy school for girls-not to mention all that money for the shrinks-and what did that get me?”I shrugged. “A seven-figure civil suit?”

“I thought you'd like it," he said, seeming hurt. "You look very pretty.”