But I know I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead — in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death — the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human — feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of navigating the unknown.

Those who say they would rather fight to the death than be raped are fools. I would rather be raped a thousand times. You do what you have to.

I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.

I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines.

My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.

As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.

I couldn't help but think, as I watched him, of the barrels of toxic fluids that had accrued behind Hal's bike shop where the scrub lining the railroad tracks had offered local companies enough cover to dump a stray contaner or two. Everything had been sealed up, but things were beginning to leak out. I had come to both pity and respect Len in the years since my mother left. He followed the physical to try to understand things that were impossible to comphrehend. In that, I could see, he was like me.