“She meant I was hungover. I had been slaughtered, legless, trolleyed, slashed, shredded, plastered, polluted, pissed. I thought, I do love my country's relationship with alcohol. How would I ever exist in the United States? I suppose I would have grief counselling instead. (77)”

“Okay," he said, "would I be twisting you words too much if I said that you are mad at Lydia because she loves you?"I had to think about that for a while. "I suppose not. We weren't supposed to fall in love with each other."So she's violated your agreement?" Then he wanted to know why Lydia would have ever agreed to such a thing in the first place. Why would she want to be in a relationship not based on love? We decided the only reason would be if she was afraid of love. And if she was no longer afraid of love, wasn't that good? Didn't it say that she was healthier and more mature? And why had I ever wanted to be with someone who was neither of these things? Was I, too, afraid of love?”

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”

“Thoughts of Narian, the strong, brave, tender young man with whom I had fallen in love, juxtaposed against the dark entity I envisioned taking over my homeland, would have shredded my sanity.”

“Ever since we had arrived in the United States, my classmates kept asking me about magic carpets.- They don't exist-I always said. I was wrong. Magic carpets do exist. But they are called library cards.”

“I feel that it is possible that I might never have existed, for my self consists in thought; therefore I who think would never have been if my mother had been killed before I had come to life; therefore I am not a necessary being. I am not eternal or infinite either…”