“I don't know why, but whenever I'd look at Amber, all determined and long-legged, I'd imagine her climbing out of a car wreck while the slow, sluggish passengers burned inside.”

“I'd stopped waving to passengers in cars by then- I'd grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives- so I sat and watched and rode and thought, and as soon as the bus doors opened, we all rolled out the doorand split apart like billiard balls.”

“I don't want to be an oddity, a freak, or a curiosity. I don't want to be the car wreck that people slow down to gawk at.”

“I'd hate to list our specialties. Wreck cars, eat doughnuts, create mayhem.”

“If jealousy was the vindaloo of love, I'd imagined her tongue burning, and such a fire forcing her to spill her truth.”

“I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.”