“O'Kelly's disregard for cliche is so sweeping that it almost has its own panache. I find this entertaining or irritating or mildly comforting, depending on my mood, but at least it makes it very easy to prepare your script in advance.”

“Being easily freaked out comes with its own special skill set: you develop subtle tricks to work around it, make sure people don't notice. Pretty soon, if you're a fast learner, you can get through the day looking almost exactly like a normal human being.”

“It took my breath away, that evening. If you've ever dreamed that you walked into your best-loved book or film or TV program, then maybe you've got some idea how it felt: things coming alive around you, strange and new and utterly familiar at the same time; the catch in your heartbeat as you move through the rooms that had such a vivid untouchable life in your mind, as your feet actually touch the carpet, as you breathe the air; the odd, secret glow of warmth as these people you've been watching for so long, from so far away, open their circle and sweep you into it.”

“Have you noticed how easily the very young die? They make the best martyrs for any cause, the best soldiers, the best suicides. It's because they're held here so lightly: they haven't yet accumulated loves and responsibilities and commitments and all the things that tie us securely to this world. They can let go of it as easily and simply as lifting a finger. But as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever.”

“Somewhere at the back of my head I heard a click, tiny and irrevocable. Memory magnifies it to a wrenching, echoing crack, but the truth is that it was the very smallness that made it so terrible.”

“About your easy heads my prayersI said with syllables of clay.What gift, I asked, shall I bring nowBefore I weep and walk away?Take, they replied, the oak and laurel.Take our fortune of tears and liveLike a spendthrift lover. All we askIs the one gift you cannot give.”

“Your irritation is important to us," Cassie droned, looking at me upside down with her head tipped backwards over her headrest, "and will be exacerbated in rotation. Thank you for holding.”