“As my father talked, tears dripped down the side of his face like candle wax. The sight shocked me; until that moment, I had assumed men were as incapable of crying as they were of having babies.”

“I wonder what my baby is thinking at this moment," he called, rubbing his stomach with his hands. What I was thinking about was whether or not his being my mother was going to wreck my nightly friction ritual.”

“It just wasn't for me, and anyway, those people were a lot more far gone than I was. More in my father's league than mine. I just cut back a little. Less beer and liquor, more jogging. I was fine.”

“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy: he had been a shitty father and a shitty husband - a man who's made two bad choices based on lust and coveting and then been too weak either to live with them or undo them. But he had not been a rapist.”

“When I asked my parents how the baby got inside Ma, they both laughed, and then Daddy told me they had made it with their bodies. I pictured them fully clothed, rubbing furiously against each other, like two sticks making fire.”

“I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet.”

“Once you left Easterly, you saw the world was full of these people: ticket sellers, snack bar clerks. They assumed they were better than you just because they knew their own routines.”