“There, there, baby. We'll hide her body in the trunk later. (Tory)”

“It took all of her considerable strength to heave the girl’s wrapped body into her arms, pivot, and let it thump into the trunk.”

“A mother's body remembers her babies-the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has it's own entreaties to body and soul.”

“As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.”

“I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.”

“Oh no. Hell no. I'm not asking Ma for one of her bras. That's just… wrong."… "Your woman. You do it."…" You go. We'll pay for your therapy later.”

“She didn't want to touch the baby. Didn't want to know if she was dead. But still she reached down, her arms underneath that small body, and pulled it up against her. The body was burning with fever.
But alive. Alive!”

“For the record? I have never been her baby. In fact, I reject the notion of coming out of her body. I prefer to believe I was hatched, or perhaps purchased.”

“Just don't ask me to deliver any more satyr babies and we'll get along great.”

“Baby doll!
When bells ring out the summer free
Oh baby doll!
Will it end for you and me?
We'll sing our old Alma Mater
And think of things that used to be”