“Even a Menno sheltered from the world knows not to stick her tongue into the mouth of a boy who owns an Air Supply record. You might stick your tongue into the mouth of a boy who owned some Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but you would not date him on a regular basis, or openly.”

“That night we danced, I marked you as mine and I made it stick. There wasn’t a boy or a man on that lake that didn’t know who you belonged to, and the minute there was even a whiff one of them was stepping over the line, they walked funny for a week.”

“If you don’t have a sense of humour when you’re in a band, you end up like f**king Emerson, Lake and Palmer, making eight-disc LPs so you can all have your own three-hour f**king solos.And who wants to listen to that bollocks?”

“Boy you watch your tongue with me. Or I'll stick my foot so far up your ass the next time you go to the doctor he'll ask you how you got those boot tracks on your tonsils.”

“Miss Mitchell had a lovely voice, it was true, but Miss Mitchell speaking Italian was something celestial. Her ruby mouth opening and closing, the delicate way she almost sang the words, her tongue peeking out to wet her lips from time to time...Professor Emerson had to remind himself to close his mouth after it had dropped open.”

“..every once in a while, maybe twice a year, I dream of blood. It tastes like copper pennies on your tongue. It’s hot, hotter than you expect, and very wet at first, but it clots even as it fills your mouth. It sticks in your throat but you swallow it down, you can feel it stringy and dark in the back of your throat but you force it down so you can have some more, another mouthful, and another. I know it so well now. The dryness of it, the clots in your teeth. The need.”