"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, you can't have a baby brother, because that would mean that Daddy had sex, and that's never going to happen again."

"Which isn't, like, as bad as it sounds, because the general public kind of sucks ass."

"What love is not torment when a man knows not how to love himself? Talk not of drowning, but attaining your heart's desire by action: Put money in thy purse."

"Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind's roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feed pulled to."

"Of course they won't bloody remember, they'll be dead.' Then she called him a name in a dead language that translated, roughly, to 'poop on a stick,' but sounded more succinct, like this: 'Of course they won't bloody remember, they'll be dead, Poopstick."

"If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased-all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch."

"What are you working on?' Elizabeth asked. Nate could hear her tapping a pencil on her desk. She took notes during their conversations. He didn't know what she did with the notes, but it bothered him.'I have a lecture at the sanctuary in four days.' Why, why had he told her? Why? Now she'd rattle down the mountain in her ancient Mercedes that looked like a Nazi staff car, sit in the audience, and ask all the questions that she knew in advance he couldn't answer."

"People, generally, suck."

"All killer whales are named Kevin. You knew that, right?"

"She doesn't understand that a writer is a special creature--that I'm different from everyone else. I'm not saying I'm superior to other people, just more sensitive, I guess."

"I've seen more intelligence in the crotch lice of harem whores."

"But she's a redhead, so she's probably evil, even at her tender age.''I thought you liked redheads.''I do. What's your point?"

"Mr. Asher, you can resist who you are for only so long. Finally, you just decide to go with fate."

"Only cops and vampires have to have an invitation to enter."

"Sarcasm will make your tits fall off."

"You know what? You know what? You know what?' I was waving my finger under her nose. 'You scratched the Son of God. That's your ass, that's what."

"She can be a whirlwind of tits and terror when she puts her mind to a purpose, can't she, sir?"

"And thus he found his single source of joy in the society of other people: frightening the girls with his penis."

"You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?''It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize.''Must be a human thing.''Exactly."

"I tried cutting myself to express my heartbreak over Tommy (Lord Flood) rejecting me, but OMFG it hurts like flaming fuck."

"Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the Kool-Aid jingle is at once chilling and evocative. Donny Osmond is brilliant as James Jones."

"A woman's magazine quiz:Question: You decide to do the dread deed and just as things are starting to get hot he comes, rolls over, and asks, 'Was it good for you?You:a. Say, 'God, yes! That was the best seventeen seconds of my lifeb. Say, 'Sure, as good as it gets for me with a man.c. Put a Certs in your navel and say, 'That's for you, Mr. Bunnyman. You can have it on your way back up, after the job is finished."

"That was supposed to be the whole purpose of the Internet, you know. To share scientific information.''Not a Viagra- and porn-delivery system?"

"Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe."

"Routine feeds the illusion of safety..."

"In business, as in politics, the public is ever so tolerant of those who slime."

"I've tried to get the angel to watch MTV so I can learn the vocabulary of your music, but even with the gift of tongues, I'm having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must busta cap in someone's ass? Is 'ho' always feminine, and 'muthafucka' always masculine, while 'bitch' can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to get all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be 'stupid'? I'll not be singing over any dead mothers until I understand."

"Sweet Pocket, you mustn't ask about my life before I came here. What I am now, I have always been, and everything I am is here with you."
"'Sweet Thalia,' said I. 'That is a fiery flagon of dragon toss.'"

"And I was all, 'Don't be gross, you crustacious fuck. You pull that thing out and I'll pepper-spray you until you fry.' (You have to be stern with weenie waggers--I've been exposed to on the bus over seventeen times, so I know.)"

"The medium obscured the message."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, You're doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was - The one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn't understand. Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves. When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul - the essence of who we are, beyond the different faces we wear throughout our lives. You're just hating the selves you've always hated, and loving the ones you've always loved. It's bound to mess you up."

"Apologies, one loses perspective after spending a week in a brothel."

"She was an alien, really - a sort of eating, pooping, tantrum machine - and he didn't understand anything about her species."

"An original thought would crack your feeble skull like a thunderbolt, you craven vulture."

"Abby Von Normal - And I'm like, 'Don't change the subject, Kung Pao, what I want to know is if you're ready to spend some up-close and personal time with ninety pounds of barbarian woman-flesh! Sorry, I don't know how much that is in kilos."

"She's so small, yet she contains so much evil."

"Let me say right here, if I haven't made it clear, that I have seen as many pale, naked old-man parts in the last twenty-four hours to bruise my delicate psyche for a lifetime, so don't be surprised if you someday find me wandering the moors at midnight, a crazed look in my eye, babbling about albino Tater Tots nesting in Brillo pads and being pursued by sagging man ass, because that shit can happen when you've been traumatized."

"By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth."

"The three jewels of Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership."

"Scratch a cynic and you will find a disappointed romantic."

"Don't bruise the Foo!"

"So I'm all, 'Owned! Bee-yatch! Dog fucking owned you!' Doing a minor booty dance of ownage, perhaps, in retrospect, a bit prematurely. (I believe hip-hop to be the apprpriate language for taunting, at least until I learn French.)"

"She hugged me and I could feel the heat rise in my face, either from shame or love, like there was a difference."

"Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say 'attaboy'."

"But Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta Male, and imagination was his curse...."

"As a teacher of fourth-graders in a public school, where corporal punishement was not allowed, she had years of violence stored up and was, truth be told, sort of enjoying letting it out on Kona, who she felt could have been the poster child for the failure of public education."

"We were seekers. You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The end is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word."

"A question asked in earnest, deserves an earnest answer."

"It's wildly irritating to have invented something as revolutionary as sarcasm, only to have it abused by amateurs."

"That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm."