“I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.''I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance.”

“Nona had been bonkers since I could remember. Dad said it was menopause, but I had looked that up once, and I highly doubted that was the case.”

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.[Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction, New York Times, April 19, 1992]”

“I wonder why Holling had the fastest time," said Danny after the announcements - a whole lot louder than he had to. "Could it be because he was running away from two rats who were trying to eat him?""That might have a little to do with it," I said.”

“You and I together could be dangerous.”“Combustible, maybe,” she said. “But I doubt dangerous.”

“I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected o the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”