“Nice girl who knew cars. Wow. I stared at her face harder, wishing I knew how to make it work. C’mon, Jake – imprint already.”

“All he thinks while he studies pearlescent pigeons is this: I wish I knew how… I wish I knew… I ain’t ever gonna, but I wish I knew how it felt – (-to be free).”

“I wish I knew how to quit you.”

“I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.”

“Sometimes I wish I knew how to go crazy. I forget how.”

“But when I was a little girl, my mom always told me to be nice to everybody, no matter what they looked like or how they treated me, because I never knew who might be an angel God had sent to Earth in disguise.”