“If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)”

“He wasn't a romantic. Had never thought himself as sentimental. But he wanted this one last kiss. "Well", he said, his voice hoarse and grainy, "we'll always have Peru.”

“He hadn't a cent in his pocket, but he had faith !”

“For his thirtieth birthday he had filled a whole night-club off Regent Street; people had been queuing on the pavement to get in. The SIM card of his mobile phone in his pocket was overflowing with telephone numbers of all the hundreds of people he had met in the last ten years, and yet the only person he had ever wanted to talk to in all that time was standing now in the very next room.”

“Jake had begun to carry chalk in his pockets, also. He wrote brief sentences. He tried to word them so that a man would think.”

“At a Clinton press conference, I'm given the luxury of daydreaming, of being comfortable enough that he could find Peru on a map, say, that I don't have to hang on his every word, praying he won't fuck up.”