“Those days are gone, and good fucking riddance to them; unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it’s just a drag, like a cold or having no money. If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.”
“There would be a lot fewer of us screwing up the game of life so brilliantly, if there was always a right answer instead of just a best--or even a less bad--answer.”
“Mama Bear wasn’t quite sure how or why it happened. But she was sure of one thing-- whatever the reason, the Bear family had become a pushing, shoving, name calling, ill mannered mess!
“Roma said Cai like a foreign merchant, his mouth pulled wide. The Chinese and the Russians shared the same sound for Cai: tsai, like the sound of a match being struck. His butchering was intentional, an observation of the situation.”
“This gave him peace and hope, that anything he’d missed out on when he married Rachel so young was still there, waiting. That other people had screwed up and were starting over, too.”