Daniel Willard

“Danny had always wanted to know why things were the way they were, and how they worked. When he was five years old, he’d gotten into serious trouble by taking apart some household appliances to see how they functioned, making a complete mess of the gear train inside the can opener and shorting out the cake mixer. At the library, he borrowed books on engineering and science. He could claim, with some justification, to have a decent understanding of how the physical and mathematical worlds worked.
People were another thing entirely; he often had difficulty understanding why they did what they did. Two people in particular had him completely perplexed: Daniel Flanigan and Carlotta Pirelli.”
― Daniel Willard, The Mobster's Daughter

“I didn’t tell you this before, but Mama got pregnant with me when she was a sophomore.” Danny already knew that, of course, but he didn’t say anything. “The only reason I’m even alive is because big man Carlo Pirelli got bored with his wife and wanted to screw a pretty teenage girl. Do you know what it feels like to know that?”

Danny stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It makes you think less of yourself, doesn’t it?”
― Daniel Willard, The Mobster's Daughter