And maybe, if you don’t know what you want, you just do something anyway, and everything will change, and then maybe that will reveal what you really want.
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: This quotation is taken from a stream of thoughts that Ames is having as he considers how to talk to Katrina about his past as a trans woman and how to deal with a conversation about parenting her child. He is reflecting here on what he has learned about the value of an experimental approach to life from transitioning and detransitioning. The attitude that he takes here sums up not only his own experience but the larger idea that exists throughout Peters’ novel about the utility of chasing desire and the necessity of being willing to take new paths in life without knowing every aspect of the outcome. Ames will soon embark on such a path with Reese and Katrina, as...