“I crept in to find my father with pennies on his eyes - and looking closer I saw they were made of foil-covered chocolate. Of course I stole and ate them. Magical guilt? Tell me about it”

“He said he didn’t like my kind and I was filled with the delirious expectation that he would identify me as a common species - that there were others like myself. I controlled my excitement, but he seemed to sense it - his gaze wavered uncertainly.”

“I knew books could see people around them, they ground their tiny teeth, tried to rattle like windows, stories to tell.”

“The optimist sees the future as a rabbit sees the oncoming truck - getting bigger, not closer.”

“Seemed she should learn to smile when she was unhappy, to stop laughing, to speak up, to never speak to strangers, to share guilt for the acts of strangers, that strangers made the laws of the land, that the laws of the land valued things over life, that life ended if a stranger decided it, to be where she could be found, to feel one thing and do another. How could she hang so many contradictions in one skull”

“In books there’s nothing of the fish covered in the coldness of the sea, or the feeling of a star touching space. Bad for business.”

“The clerk tripped on the carpet, hit a window and went through, carrying with him a vase which had been on the sill. His skull broke like the vase and the vase broke like his skull, and both burst forth water mainly, and from the vase some flowers. If I could choose a death I’d make it something like that, except I’d add a good woman and some lard.”