“Daddy, how come in Kansas City the bagels taste like just round bread?”

“How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?”

“...tasting a piece of bread that someone bought is like looking at that person, but tasting a piece of bread that they baked is like looking out of their eyes.”

“Mmm, butt bagels." Elody reaches into the bag and pulls out a bagel, half squashed, then makes a big deal of taking an enormous bite out of it. "Taste like Victoria's Secret.""Taste like thong floss," I say."Taste like crack," Lindsay says."Taste like fart," Elody says, and Lindsay spits coffee on the dashboard, and I start laughing and can't stop, and all the way to school we're thinking of flavors for butt bagels, and I'm thinking that this---my life, my friends---might be weird or screwy or imperfect or damaged or whatever, but it's never seemed better to me.”

“It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.”

“If my love were a bagel, I’d put cream cheese on it. But it’s not a bagel, so I just put cheddar on top. Would you like to try a sample?”