“I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?”

“My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. It's like I was raising chickens inside of me. The chickens lay their eggs and the eggs hatch into other chickens, which then lay eggs.”

“With a zero sum game, it almost always ends up being a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Both people involved will perceive the other to have started it.”

“God, it was hot! Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk; this kind of heat would fry an egg inside the chicken.”

“She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.”

“Monsters,' her dad said, a tear tracing his cheek. 'I live in a world of monsters.”

“The chicken is only an egg’s way for making another egg.”

“How sweetly he came to her, she thought. Even with his bulk and power, he came to her… sweetly.”

“As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.”

“Annabeth came up to me. She was dressed in black camouflage with her Celestial bronze knife strapped to her arm and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder—ready for stabbing or surfing the Internet, whichever came first.”