“Obviously Wennerström himself was by no means poor. She calculated the real assets to be worth between 90 and 100 billion kronor, which was nothing to sneez eat.”

“In Haiti, untitled rural and urban real estate holdings are together worth some 5.2 billion. To put that sum in context, it is four times the total of all the assets of all the legally operating companies in Haiti, nine times the value of all assets owned by the government, and 158 times the value of all foreign direct investment in Haiti's recorded history to 1995.”

“Wennerström was devoting himself to fraud that was so extensive it was no longer merely criminal–it was business.”

“Her universe is such a big place full of so many galaxies-100 billion of them with 100 billion stars apiece which means 10 to the 22nd power stars-that it’s terrifying to think of the odds that we found each other. We want to freeze the perfect moment hold on to it at least long enough to understand it. But it dances on with us or without us so we jump in and try to keep up. The universe is expanding and we are just two of a billion stars.”

“I was out of salt so I threw pepper over my left shoulder for luck and the poor guy behind me almost sneezed himself to death.”

“There was nothing mean about his voice. In fact it was almost too nice. Like she was too dim to grasp whatever was so obvious to him. Which made her absolutely furious.”