Tell me what you want, what you really, really want," he said. "Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison.

Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be.

Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, "I'm going in! I'm going in!" like a manic cave diver.

Guilt isn't always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.

You'd been petting a stuffed dog?' she said 'A dead one?' 'It was a really well stuffed dog' I clarified. 'I have seen some bad taxidermy. This was top-notch work. It would have fooled anyone.

Spicy food and I have a close relationship—an obsessive one, in fact. If it’s spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain . . . which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That’s a known fact of science.

No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information. At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring.