although science could pinpoint the exact spot in the brain that ignites rage, they had yet to identify the location that produces love.

He had then warned his daughter not to violate the Eleventh Commandment. "Which one is that?" I asked her. "Do not bullshit thy father," she said.

But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked. “Make me”, I replied. “Beg pardon?” “Make me”, I repeated. Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked. “Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own.” “Like what, Oliver?” she asked, “like just what is it he makes you do?” “The ‘right things’”, I said. “What’s wrong with the ‘right things’?” she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.

Something may have been lost in translation, but it certainly wasn't love

The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.

What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?" I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ. "Sonovabitch." "To his face?" she asked. "I never see his face." "He wears a mask?" "In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.

I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.