"One thing I've always wondered—why did you enter that bikini contest when you were a teenager?” Her face flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “How far back did you trace me?” “Far enough.” A pause. “You didn't answer my question.” “And you didn't turn into a puff of smoke and disappear. The world is full of disappointments."

"I appear at times merry and in good heart, talk, too, before others quite reasonably, and it looks as if I felt, too, God knows how well within my skin. Yet the soul maintains its deathly sleep and the heart bleeds from a thousand wounds."

"I walked to the door where Clovis waited. When I looked up, he was staring at Adam. A quick glance backward confirmed Adam was returning his stare. Freaking males, I thought, they couldn’t be more obvious about their territorial dispute if they’d both peed on me."

"...The way we ended things was not uncommon for kids like us. She said we'd lost enough in our short lives to want to cauterize our wounds before they happened. We burned our connection closed before we felt the holes."

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for."

"It's not his bodythat changesright away.It's somethinginside. He sayshe wants tobe a littleweaker. I don'tunderstand.I say 'thinner?'and he says'no, I wantto be strongerin a differentway.' notbecause of me,but for me."