“It wasn’t enough that I had to worry about playing well and winning the game, but I also had to deal with possibility that one of my teammates could be dragged off the field by the inhabitants of the mental hospital.”

“I told them to place a cyvasse table in your chambers.""Who was I supposed to play with?""Yourself. Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. How well do you know the game, Arianne?""Well enough to play.""But not to win. My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only played such games as I can win.”

“In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right. The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen.”

“About winning and losing: It isn't important, what really counts is how you play the game. About playing the game: PLAY TO WIN!”

“Teammates...were fine things. Piling onto the bus before the game, edgy with shared nerves, egging one another on with the genial, meaningless phrase C'mon, you guys!, collapsing back into the same seats for the ride home—the sense of striving in accord had been a sweet part of high school. Possibly the sweetest. But the camaraderie had not survived graduation, or even the off-seasons. Her teammates, passing in the school corridors in winter or spring, were downshifted to nodding acquaintances who had once been close, that past connection floating off like cotton candy on the tongue.”

“One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.”