"... my grandfather might say 'I once knew a girl who loved tigers so much she almost became one herself.' Because I am little, and my love of tigers comes directly from him, I believe he is talking about me, offering me a fairy tale in which I can imagine myself - and will, for years and years." Prologue, p. 4

"He had been counting on the pattern into which we had fallen as a family over the years, the tendency to lie about each other's physical conditions and whereabouts to spare one another's feelings and fears ..." Chapter 1, p. 20

"These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life - of my grandfather's days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the university. One, which I learned after his death, is the...