“Cookie!" The kid holds up a carrot with the feathery green still attached to the top. "Seriously?" The woman gives me a wide-eyed don't say anything look and walks away fast.”

“Let me give you a word of advice. A loyalty that holds fast will become a blade, and will some day pierce those you hold dear. Open both eyes wide. That is, if you… don’t want to end up like me.”

“Why do you smoke so damn fast?" I asked.She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, "Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

“Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river.'Why do you smoke so damn fast?' I asked.She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

“She gazed up at me wide-eyed from the shed floor and bit her lip seductively. Unfortunately it was her top lip so she looked like a piranha.”

“You can widen the feet of a compass, but they are still attached at the top; you can spin them away from each other, but you always wind up where you started.”