Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. “I’m embalmed.” “Potted and splificated?” “Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night.

Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing.

For once, Evie didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t really thought of her uncle as very human. He was more like a textbook who occasionally remembered to put on a tie. But it was clear that he was, indeed, human, with a deep wound named Rotke.

Goodbye," I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.

It's so laughable that it's somewhere beyond comedy and right into tragedy again.

Theta blew out another plume of cigarette smoke. “Not interested. Love’s messy, kiddo. Let those other girls get moony-eyed and goofy. Me? I got plans.

But...you could have whatever you wished." "Exactly," he says, nuzzling my neck. "But," I say, "you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman's carriage." Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. "To each his own magic," he says and kisses me again.