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It begins with: What are you? Hollered from the perimeter of your front yard when you’re nine—younger, probably. You’ll be asked again throughout junior high and high school, then out in the world, in strip clubs, in food courts, over the phone, and at various menial jobs. The askers are expectant. They demand immediate gratification. Their question lifts you slightly off your preadolescent toes, tilting you, not just because you don’t understand it, but because even if you did understand this question, you wouldn’t yet have an answer.

— If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

“Why does everybody want to be famous,” Dellarobia asked, “and at the same time they want to hear the ugliest trash about famous people?” “I guess they hate what they haven’t got.” “Everybody wants to be rich, too, but there’s still some kind of team spirit. You should hear Bear on his rant against raising taxes on the millionaires. He says they worked for every penny, and that’s what he went in the military to protect.” “Wow. He was a gunner in ’Nam to protect CEO salaries?” “I guess.” “Well, yeah,” Dovey said. “That’s America. We watch shows about rich people’s houses and their designer dresses and we drool. It’s patriotic.”

— Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

“He..." Richard began. "The marquis. Well, you know, to be honest, he seems a little bit dodgy to me."

Door stopped. The steps dead-ended in a rough brick wall. "Mm," she agreed. "He's a little bit dodgy in the same way that rats are a little bit covered in fur.”

— Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

So she was what Hester called a 911 Christian: in the event of an emergency, call the Lord. Unlike all those who called on Jesus daily, rain or shine, to discuss their day and feel the love. Once upon a time she’d had her mother for that. Jesus was a more reliable backer, evidently, less likely to drink himself unconscious or get liver cancer. No wonder people chose Him as their number-one friend. But if the chemistry wasn’t there, what could you do? Dellarobia scrutinized life too hard, she knew that. For a year she’d gone with Cub to Wednesday Bible group and loved the sense of being back in school, but her many questions did not make her the teacher’s pet. Right out of the gate, in Genesis, she identified two completely different versions of how it all got started. The verses could be a listen-and-feel kind of thing, like music, she’d suggested, not like the instruction booklet that comes with a darn appliance. A standpoint that won no favors with the permanent discussion leader, Blanchie Bise, cheerleader for taking the Word on faith. For crap’s sake, the first rule of believable was to get your story straight. Hester let Dellarobia stop coming to Wednesday Bible.

— Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture. Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise

— Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (Page 1)