“It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
But she had only just now been born.”

“I wondered if she was trying to convey something to me, something she could not put into words - something prior to words that she could not grasp within herself and which therefore had no hope of ever turning into words.”

“She always had been in touch with something outside of human ken. She had something in her no other human had. You sensed it, but you could not name it, for there was no name for this thing she had. And she had fumbled with it, trying to use it, not knowing how to use it, charming off the warts and healing poor hurt butterflies and only God knew what other acts that she performed unseen.”

“She had to have faith not just in trying but in failing. Was she strong enough to fail Was she strong enough not to”

“When she meets a powerful man she's more likely to try and blow him away than blow him off. Stop that erection right now, you sick, sick boy. Stop it! Concentrate, that's how!”

“Now that she realized she had been waiting for him — she did not like that.”

“Uptown girl
She's been living in her uptown world.
I bet she never had a backstreet guy
I bet her mama never told her why.
I'm gonna try for an uptown girl.
She's been living in her white bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now she's looking for a downtown man
That's what I am.”

“She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all.”

“She perched on her windowsill, gazing at the lurid sun soaking into the Caldera, trying to appreciate it even though she couldn’t have it. Why did she always feel she had to do something in the face of beauty?”

“Cora didn't know what optimistic meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar with the word. None of them had heard it before. She decided that it meant trying.”