“Your friend Mikey knew what my touch could do, but he didn’t tell me. He turned me into a murderer. Worse than a murderer.”“I think,” said Nick, “they call that manslaughter or wrongful death, don’t they? I mean, when it’s an accident or out of ignorance, or something.”Clarence turned to Nick, studying him with his Everlost eye. “You’re a lot smarter than you were back in the cage,” Clarence said. “You look better too. Back then you were a thing, now you’re almost a person.”“Thanks . . . but ‘almost’ is still ‘almost.’”“Yeah, well, we’re all almost something.”

“When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can’t describe.”“We all felt it,” Nick said.“You may have felt it, but I caused it.” Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. “Something changed out there. I don’t know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn’t deserve what I did to him—and the powers that be know that I did it.” Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.“What if,” said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, “what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?”Clarence chuckled at the thought. “I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me.”“But you do think that something changed. . . .”“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”“What if it’s neither?” suggested Nick. “What if we get to make it one or the other?”

“It’s one thing if a person learns you’re a witch. It’s quite another if he learns you’re a murderer. I almost forget I’m a witch now that I know I’m a murderer—murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse.”

“What if I shave?" he said. "I look much better when I'm shaved. My cousin will vouch for that—do I not look almost handsome when I shave, Edward? " He didn't wait for the duke's reply but turned earnestly back to Prudence. "Do you think you could marry me if I shaved?”

“You make your son out to be to be almost an idiot; well let me tell you something, Mrs Loan, if he were a complete idiot, drooling at the mouth, he'd still be a better person then you.”

“Okay, okay, backing off. Um, I suppose this would be a bad time to ask you to talk to Pete for me, you know, about the car?'His eyes widened. I could almost hear him thinking, Of all the nerve! 'You were driving,' he said.'But he likes you so much better than me.''That is because I do not keep wrecking the rentals.”