"Zoe stopped one last time in front of the mirror, adjusting her new American dress. She didn’t see the dress, however. She saw what the big Russian did to her. She saw what al-Qaeda did to her. She saw a person shunned by her Persian village. She saw ugliness. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw deficiency."

"Kenji has a hand pressed to his mouth, desperately trying to suppress a smile. He’s shaking his head, holding up a hand in apology. And then he breaks, laughing out loud, snorting as he tries to muffle the sound. “I’m sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together, shaking his head again. “This is not a funny moment. It’s not. I’m not laughing."

"He looks at me and then, reverting to the voice he'd used with Kendra, says, 'If homegirls wanna see me as ghetto trash'--he stops and switches to his lispy, sassy voice--'or big-ass queer'--now he switches to his deepest Shakespeare voice--'I shall not take it upon myself to disabuse them."

"Or deep down, maybe there was more. Maybe I wanted someone to figure out who wrote the note and secretly come to my rescue.Maybe. I don’t know. But I was careful never to give myself away."

"Otherwise the silence in the room was profound, the silence of places Brian had not yet been: gazing at the lifeless body of a beloved, the echo of a lost illusion, the tinnitus of betrayal."

"It wasn't for children, seventh grade. You could read the stress of even entering the building in the postures of the teachers, the security guards. Nobody could relax in such a racial and hormonal disaster area."