“I swear that man swaggers in his sleep,”“Yeah, but Jude’s swagger is justified, not manipulated. He moves with that strut because he knows how to make a woman throw her head back in bed. And he knows it.”

“[Razo] knocked, peered inside, then jumped and shut the door, quiet as brushing two feathers together. He smiled at his own stealth, then swaggered right into a chair, banging it against the wall.You oaf. He cut short his swagger and began to move with exaggerated sneakiness.”

“He'd followed Dasha once before and remembered which door was hers. He knocked, peered inside, then jumped in and shut the door, quiet as brushing two feathers together. He smiled at his own stealth, then swaggered right into a chair, banging it against the wall.You oaf. He cut short his swagger and begin to move with exaggerated sneakiness. There was a certain pleasure in that, too.”

“Patrick was the living embodiment of naughty. He sweat for a living—he worked on houses while his slick, polished brother sold them—and his swagger served as a convincing argument that he knew how to make a woman sweat when the lights were off, too.”

“Midget, midget, midget, how he struts and winks, For he knows a man's as big as what he hopes and thinks!”

“A boy needs a father to show him how to be in the world. He needs to be given swagger, taught how to read a map so that he can recognize the roads that lead to life and the paths that lead to death, how to know what love requires, and where to find steel in the heart when life makes demands on us that are greater than we think we can endure.”