“Family tragedies had a way of smashing everything apart and then gluing it all back together. The problem was no one ever knew how long the glue would hold.”

“There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are.”

“It seemed everything that had ever lived and died in this world had passed through here, had left its indelible imprint.”

“But I knew he wouldn't kiss me. Not tonight. Not like this. There was too much between us now, all the words and near misses. All the potential, the alternate futures that would stretch out before ...”

“You ask me why Im nice to you, he said. Why, why, why. But you dont ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want.”

“They say you can never step into the same river twice. And maybe that's how it was for Papi now, memories shifting and re-forming soundlessly beneath him while the rest of us sat on the shore and w...”

“Reality wasn't as important as people made it out to be; to Jude it was simply the physical state in which he found himself, an environment he had limited control over.”

“The idea was a splinter in my mind. Always there, always stinging,even when I wasn't conscious of it. Even when I wasn't thinking about it.”

“For every inch of skin, there is memory. Devils are so made. Saints, too, if you believe in them. His humanity has been broken as an old walking stick that once held up a crippled man named Thomas....”

“It frightens me that I can't do anything sensible about it.""Are you scared that you'll wind up with a boring job where you have to see the same people every day and drink instant coffee?""I'm more...”

“She'd be dead before the memories and pain were finally gone; she knew it, accepted it, and dealt with it.”