Do you know why I left America, Lidewij? So that I would never again have to encounter Americans." "But you are an American." "Incurably so, it seems.

I hope we get pulled over, he says. I'd like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress.

There are at least two distinct meanings of 'hot': there is the, like, normal human definition which is that 'this individual seems suitable for mating'. And then there's the weird, culturally constructed definition of 'hot' which means, 'that individual is malnourished and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts'. Like, I think if you went back to the 18th century and asked a 15-year-old boy, 'Would you like to marry a woman who has had plastic bags needlessly inserted into her breasts?' that 15-year-old boy would probably be like ... 'What's plastic?'

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

The joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.

I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. But he wasn't crying. Curiously, he felt too depressed to cry. Too hurt. It felt as if she'd taken the part of him that cried.

She was loved deeply, but not widely