“I'm just a child who's learned to impersonate an adult.”

“Mizzy has, again, wandered into the garden, like a child who feels no fealty to adult conversation.”

“...sanity involves a certain measure of impersonation, not simply for the benefit of husband and servants but for the sake, first and foremost, of one's own convictions.”

“Who has more power than a child? She can be as cruel as she wants to be. He can't.”

“Man," he said, "I'm not afraid of graveyards. The dead are just, you know, people who wanted the same things you and I want.""What do we want?" I asked blurrily."Aw, man, you know," he said. "We just want, well, the same things these people wanted.""What was that?"He shrugged. "To live, I guess," he said.”

“You know what I am?" he says."What?""I'm an ordinary person.""Come on.""I know. Who isn't an ordinary person? How horribly presumptuous to want to be anything else. But I have to tell you. I've been treated as something special for so long and I've tried my hardest to be something special but I'm not, I'm not exceptional, I'm smart enough, but I'm not brilliant and I'm not spiritual or even all that focused. I think I can stand that, but I'm not sure if the people around me can.”

“Mizzy has wandered into the garden. Carole looks contemplatively at him, says, "Lovely boy.""My wife's insanely younger brother. He's one of those kids with too much potential, if you know what I mean.""I know exactly what you mean."Further details would be redundant. Peter knows the Potters' story: the pretty, unstoppable daughter who's tearing through her Harvard doctorate versus the older child, the son, who has, it seems, been undone by his good fortune; who at thirty-eight is still surfing and getting stoned by way of occupations, currently in Australia.”