“What would be frightening about me jumping out of the bush wearing a pig mask is not the sudden surprise, not me, and not the pig mask, but that the ordinary world had split open for a moment to reveal some possibility never previously considered.”

“True vice, my lady, would frighten us all, if it did not wear the mask of virtue. (p.56)”

“But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig'... we have no ordinary pig." "Well", said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”

“I lit my loneliness on fire like it was a cigarette. But I didn’t smoke it, because that would have required me to remove my gas mask. And what kind of sensible girl is going to be attracted to a guy out in public not wearing his gas mask?”

“I remembered something my first partner had told me. Never wrestle with a pig, Lindsay. You both get dirty. The pig likes it.”

“The life that I have lived was no more than a mask covering the real me. What has happened was not to kill me but to reveal me.”