"Summer sticks to her skirt sumptuously, in the shiny gray fabric hanging loosely from her curves. Her chestnut eyes, apparently hidden from strangers; her simple but graceful face, unpainted by Madison Avenue; and her straight black hair, parted down the middle without ego, all suggest a minimalist - almost pastoral - beauty that is oddly discordant with her fashionable attire, comfortable indifference to the crowds, and quasi-attentive perusal of the Time magazine unfolded over her hand."

"It will all work out, Inas. You come from a long line of survivors and strong women. So everything will be fine in the end. And we are always with you in spirit, to guide you and love you."

"So if you choose me, then you have declared me more special to you than anyone else, because only one man can have that honor."

"Indeed, wounded loved can make for fierce vengeance. And, from what I know of Anissa, it does seem a bit out of character for her to behave so spitefully, so I'd like to think that she really is just deeply hurt, angry and looking for some way to injure me back...I hope she knows how well she's succeeded."

"But I did feel the vertigo of death's invitation, beckoning me towards the dark waters below. Only a newfound perspective and desire steadied my wavering soul. I came to realize, just in time, that suicide was far too easy " and obscenely cowardly " after someone I knew, not even half my age, had been through so much worse and still marched gloriously on."

"You and your siblings are the most precious part of my life. And of all my children, you have the most potential to go anywhere you wish in this world " your test scores and grades have always been among the highest of your peers. But it's clear now that you cannot reach your full potential in Syria."

"She was somehow this damaged creature I had fortuitously encountered along my path and now cared about as a result. Granted, I didn't cause her harm, as I did with Icarus, but I somehow began to feel responsible for her welfare."

"The unlikely group that resulted from the union of five diverse characters in their late twenties operated with surprising harmony. This cohesiveness could be attributed to two factors: 1) everyone's issues and embarrassing pasts were plainly disclosed prior to the gang's formation and 2) the clan had been expressly conceived as a male support group."

"I got it! I got it! Heeb declared triumphantly. Evan stopped in the middle of his kitchenette to hear Heeb's idea. 'Sex in the Title.'Yeah, that's what you've been saying I need.'No, that's the title: 'Sex in the Title.''You want me to call my novel 'Sex in the Title?''Yeah. Isn't it great?"

"I kept returning to this new and bizarre question: is there anything that actually is as it seems? Is anything perceptually straightforward? Maybe that's inherently impossible, because impressions are, by their very nature, cumulative " the sum of all your interactions with and perceptions of things."

"In addition to my new outlook on life, in some absurdly simple way, Anissa gave me several new reasons to live. Above all, I had to see her again and find out what, if anything, would happen between her and me."

"And as their penile pain began to subside, the two men were able to form more complex thoughts, resulting in a collaborative work: the development of a worldview that might be described as 'penilosophy."

"People should think that being a writer is cool. Even if you're just a starving writer. Besides, most great writers were starving at one point or another. It comes with the title."

"With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfort, and familiarity " even though thy emitted the same kind of fiery energy as the flames caused by the war."

"The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit individuals with higher test scores to increase the average test scores of their matriculated students)."

"A few minutes later, my eyes began to feel a bit droopy, but I vaguely noticed that Anissa was whispering something."

"Adding to my emotional dizziness on Sunday, I spoke with my sister, who kept noting how amazing Michael is, and what a brave and selfless man he is for having helped as he did."

"I'm just not ready to give myself up, Sammy. I mean, there's something perfect about virginity, and I haven't found someone who deserves to take that perfection from me 'You're loco, Carlos. Insane. Totally crazy Most guys think they're imperfect for still being virgins past the age of seventeen."

"Still not sure about how easily he could be integrated into their posse, Trevor smiled in delighted relief at how tolerantly two of his close friends had received his new identity."

"Youth is marked by a breathtaking novelty that diminishes with each year of age - until life becomes a delusive struggle to break routines, escape the ordinary, and rediscover the joy of discovery."

"Aren't 3,000 lives worth a miracle to a good and all-powerful god?"

"You have to take this with you too, she said, opening a box and holding up a silver necklace with the Syriac cross (a crucifix with a budding flower shape on each tip) dangling from it. 'My mother gave it to me mother, who passed it to me. Now is the right time to give it to you. Not just because you're leaving and will need something that always connects you to your roots, but also because tonight we remember her."

"Can I speak to Sayvyer, please?'You're looking for the savior? At 1:15 a.m.?'No. her name's Sayvyer.'There's no savior here. Especially not at 1:15 a.m."

"At one point, I began to think that I had a divine doorman. Lenny was the most unlikely incarnation of God I could imagine, and yet, I kept drifting irresistibly towards this absurd conclusion. Despite my staunchly atheistic inclinations, I couldn't explain Lenny any other way. But eventually I came to my senses and realized that he was just one of those game show freaks with an encyclopedic memory. That didn't make him God, did it? Would God proclaim so regularly how much he likes Patsy's Pizza?"

"Let the park live in you until it sings you a song."

"Having had virtually no contact with the outside world for the last few weeks, Evan had temporarily forgotten the social norms governing shopping conduct or approaching celebrities in public."

"And you never fall behind?'Of course I do. But I always feel guilty when that happens. After all, my journal is the oldest and most loyal friend I have. And it never interrupts me when I'm speaking, he added, with a boyish grin."

"I had always been an atheist until I met Lenny. He was too wonderously complex and good for there to be no benevolent and intelligent force behind our marvelous cosmos. Lenny gave me the actual proof my fiercely skeptical mind had always demanded. Not some logical, 37-step proof of God's existence. It was a personal proof. And it was irrefutable."

"Honest dishonesty. That's quite the oxymoron " but I like the originality that you've brought to bear in the art of rationalization. Maybe you should consider becoming a lawyer, he added jokingly."

"Don't invite envy to your house " you never know who will show up, she used to warn me."

"Titus, have you ever had your heart broken?'Oh, son. How could you ask a man who used to play the blues a question like that?'How long does it take to go away?'A broken heart?'Yeah.'There's no precise formula, Sammy.'Just give me an estimate.'A good rule of thumb is at least half the time that you were in love. Or twice the time. It all just depends."

"Anyway, I think Florence and I noticed each other before the local train screeched to a halt at the 110th Street station, because as I boarded it felt as though we were supposed to step into the same car, and hold onto the same moist metal bar. My wishful hunch now seems confirmed by the way she's reading her Time magazine article next to me."

"What's a TH?'A Traffic Hazard, Heeb clarified.'Oh you mean because the woman is so hot she'll take your eyes off the road? Narc confirmed.'Exactly."

"They truly embodied goodness and generosity " like angels sent to save me in my hour of greatest need. Mohammed had risked everything to keep a promise to my father. He and his family saved not only my life, but also my faith in others."

"Check my riddle, and I'll let you play my fiddle."

"Oh. Well was this your first time painting a live model?She nodded her head, with an almost guilty look on her face.'What's it like?'Hard, she replied."

"But I stayed up thinking about how I've been lying to him, no less than I lie to myself in my pre-sleep ritual. And I lied to him again just as we were growing more intimate than ever and he asked me about my scar."

"Well, on some level, it's similar to the psychological phenomenon of helplessness, where the will to try is lost. You get to the point where you just assume that your spontaneous call to a friend will go to voicemail or an assistant, and you decide not to bother."

"What's SQ? asked Evan.'Sexual Quotient.'What's that?'Basically, it's your odds of getting laid. Everyone has an SQ. just like everyone has an IQ.'I've never heard that term before.'That's because I made it up.'That figures. Finally applying your actuarial skills to what really matters, eh?"

"But then, as I looked in the mirror, I became fixated on some hairs near my carotid artery that were still there. I pushed the blade deep against my neck to shave them off, and then blood squirted out."

"The lead-up to the moment was magical in every respect, but a part of me was, and still is, uneasy about the whole thing for many reasons."

"And you can do far more for us from America than you can from here, where you're just another defenseless Christian. So if you really want to help, Inas, then you'll go to the very best school you can get into and earn the best grades you can."

"Oh no. I'm not gonna let you leave yet. I'm gonna show you the value of takin' your time to get to work. I probably should have done this a long time ago."

"Dating someone exclusively for four months in New York is like four years in Anchorage."

"That could also be because at one point during the film, our hands found each other. And when I felt Michael's middle finger caress the inside of my palm, it sent a tickle up my spine, and the fingers of my right hand were soon exploring his left hand, and we each took turns tracing the contours of the other's hands."

"But despite these and many other differences, Evan and Heeb had become close friends " an improbability that could have been produced only by the even greater improbabilities that brought them together."

"It's not a bad thing, if you're responsible about it. Just don't start having boyfriends. Wait until you've found your husband. 'And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can't have a boyfriend until then? I asked ironically."

"Every human relationship begins with a coincidence. Even the most fundamental relationship - that of parent and child - begins entirely with a coincidence. The child is produced by whatever serendipity brought its parents together, and the fact that the child was born to its particular parents instead of to another couple is pure happenstance. Thus, children have no choice over the relationship that is most important to their existence.By contrast, friends and lovers choose each other, but even these choices are reactions to whatever random coincidence made the resulting relationship possible."

"Because in the end, we die. It's like Chekhov observed in so many of his plays: 'in two hundred years, no one will even know we were here."

"So our narcissism has bared forth an unflattering nakedness that shames our species. But this is humanity. This is our condition."