“They said, "You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are." The man replied, "Things as they are are changed upon the blue guitar.”

“If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically go.”

“Mira, I'm about to be naked," Blue said as he whipped off his belt and tossed it on the floor. "So watch out. Well, in my underwear.""I've seen you in your bathing suit," Mira said. "It's the same thing.""It is not the same thing," Blue said. "When it's accompanied by seventies porn music, it's an X-rated strip show." Blue yanked off his shirt. "Freddie, you're kind of slow on the uptake. Eine kleine porn music, please."Freddie scrunched his forehead in distaste. "I don't want to plug my guitar in just so I can play some bow-chicka-wow-wow accompaniment to your strip show.Mira laughed. "Bow-chicka-what was that, Freddie?”

“You don't like Blue, do you?""No," Mira said, caught off guard by the change of subject."I was worried he was doing his knight-in-tarnished-armor thing and it was winning you over.”

“Things weren’t real to you. They were just raw material for you to reshape to tell a story you liked better. You could never just listen to a boy play guitar, you’d have to turn it into a poem, make it all about you.”

“I love people who play guitars on roofs!" said Rose, hopping along the pavement in one of her sudden happy moods. "Don't you?""Never knew anyone else who did it!""Don't you like Tom?""Of course I do. But I don't know about all the other guitar-on-roof players! They might be really awful people, with just that one good thing about them. Playing guitars on roofs... or bagpipes... Or drums... Sarah would like that, and Saffy could have the bagpipes! Caddy could have a harp.... What about Mum?""One of those gourds filled with beans!" said Rose at once. "And Daddy could have a grand piano. On a flat roof. With a balcony and pink flowers in pots around the edge! And I'll have a very loud trumpet! What about you?""I'll just listen," said Indigo.”