“The eight count is brilliant, and Mackenzie's smile-and-nod method, although a bit perkier than the one I've been using at school, is a tool with which I am already comfortable. There are a few moments of borderline flailing, but overall I gallop off court feeling okay.My tumbling pass is another story.”

“About as genuine as tea made from a bit of paper which once lay in a drawer beside another piece of paper which had been used to wrap up a few tea leaves from which tea had already been made three times.”

“Ugh! How many stories about love, copulation, marriage and death already exist, not one of which tells the truth! How sick I am of well-constructed plots and brilliant writing!”

“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.”

“They all babble on about "state" and "formations" and "tumbling" while I smile and nod. When in doubt, smile and nod.”

“I exhale slowly, ten, nine, eight... counting backwards without meaning to, but it feels better than counting up, because at one it will be over, right?”