I'd vowed years ago to go to the grave the same way I'd been born, just a lot more wrinkly.

I don't make sonic booms. I want a whip. I like the idea of walking around making sonic booms everywhere.

Although love could grow in times of peace, it tempered in battle. Daddy told me once - when I'd said something about how perfect his relationship with Mom was - that I should have seen the first five years of their marriage, that they'd fought like hellions, crashed into each other like two giant stones. That eventually they'd eroded each other into the perfect fit, become a single wall, nestled into each other's curves and hollows, her strengths chinking his weaknesses, her weaknesses reinforced by his strengths.

We're translating the Kama Sutra," Barrons said, with interactive aids.

In my experience, anybody besides your mom that feeds you is going to want something in exchange for it.

Dishonesty increases disorder exponentially. It's hard enough to communicate when you're telling the truth.

All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone.