“They came out in a dim, damp basement - a generic sort of place, full of moulding boxes. 'You take me to the nicest places,' Claire said, and sneezed.”

“The place where you came from ain't there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now—inside your daddy's house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?”

“There are people who are generic. They make generic responses and they expect generic answers. They live inside a box and they think people who don't fit into their box are weird. But I'll tell you what, generic people are the weird people. They are like genetically-manipulated plants growing inside a laboratory, like indistinguishable faces, like droids. Like ignorance.”

“Lacy took the box she’d brought up from the basement and placed each item inside. Here was thecrime scene: look at what was left behind and try to re-create the boy.”

“If there's any better place to get stoned than a rolling box full of pastry, then they didn't have the keys for it, anyway.”

“Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.”