“I could almost feel hope latching onto my heart and pulling it upward.”

“I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.”

“I push the interest, because I can't stop getting hopeful that she'll latch onto something that will so consume her that she can forget, for long, long periods of time, how inherently difficult her life is.”

“[T]hat I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf--felt akin to an instance of religious grace.”

“I waited for my body to respond to her nearness. Hoping that my heart would beat wildly or that wonderful tingling feeling would begin to surge from my groin. But my insides were quiet, almost…bored.”

“A budding fashionista even at four, I would capture the little lizards and latch them, still living, onto my earlobes as earrings. Most girls wouldn't touch them, I thought they completed the outfit.”