“On the so-called Kissing Bridge in Bassey Park, amid the declarations of school spirit and undyng love, someone had carved the words I WILL KILL MY MOTHER SOON, and below it someone had added: NOT SOON ENOUGH SHES FULL OF DISEEZE.”

“Soon someone would say the fatal words, "Well, I think it’s time for me to go to bed.”

“My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.”

“I don't think there's such a thing as falling in love too easily or falling too fast. Or loving someone too soon or trusting someone too soon... I've never treated two relationships the same. Some people move you and some people don't.”

“My mother and Joe have a lovers' shorthand, an economy of gestures that comes when you are close enough to someone to speak their language. I wonder if my mother and father ever had that, or if my mother was always just trying to decipher him.”

“Why can't I solve this problem by killing someone? she though petulantly, then comforted herself with the mantra that had kept her going in prison: "Soon all the humans will be dead," she said, droning in the time-honored fashion of gurus everywhere. "And then Opal will be loved."And even if I'm not loved, she thought, at least all the humans will be dead.”