“Why are you being such a baby over this? I’m the one who was kept cloistered. (Livia)Because my mother and sister are sacred beings, unsullied by the hands of a man, and if you tell me differently, especially where Zarina is concerned, I swear to God, I’m donning my assassin’s uniform and gutting whatever bastard touched her. (Adron)”

“Tell me something, Adron. Sometime you’ve never shared with anyone else. Not even Thia. (Livia)I’m the one who glued Zarina to the toilet seat when she was seven. (Adron)”

“You want to know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of every morning when I wake up that this will be the day when I can no longer move for myself. I know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of time until I have no choice, except to have someone else clothe me, feed me. Change my diaper. And I can’t stand it. (Adron)Then why don’t you kill yourself? Why are you still here? (Livia)Because every time I think of doing that, I can hear my family praying over me while I was in the hospital. I hear my mother weeping, my father begging me not to die on them. I could never intentionally hurt them that way. It would devastate them both, and while I’m a pathetic asshole, I’m not that selfish. (Adron)”

“In all the universe, your mother is the only thing that truly scares me, especially where you’re concerned. I don’t ever want to be on her dark side. (Adron)Ha ha. And need I remind you my mother wasn’t the one screaming at the pool when you got shoved in. (Devyn)Yeah, all right, so we both have screwed-up, irrational mothers. (Adron)”

“So I thought your mother and sister might have some insights to share. After all, your mother had five kids and– (Livia)Stop! I don’t even want to think about my mother having sex with my father. I know for a fact that she was artificially inseminated and he never touched her. Grandpa Zamir told me so and I believe him. (Adron)That’s not what she says. (Livia)Am I not in enough pain that you’d torture me with this shit on top of it? What did I ever do to you to make you want to kill me? (Adron)”

“My sister was the one who told me where babies come from. My sister was also the one who laughed when I immediately asked her where babies go to.”