“Della pretty much told him the same thing. And she gave him hell. The kind of hell only Della can dish out. Told him he was a piece of monkey shit and that he should go have himself castrated.”

“Oh, hell to the no, he did not just storm out of there like a drama queen. She was going to find him and then castrate him.”

“Tell him what I told the others-that I'm happy to have you watch me, and serve as my assistant, but only on my terms. Or,if you're feeling lucky...you can tell him that Dearly said he can go to hell.”

“There is so much to know and we can only guess. Guess around him. To know him from these stray actions I am told about by those who loved him. And yet, he is still one of those books we long to read whose pages remain uncut. We are still unwise. It is not that he became too complicated but that he had reduced himself to a few things around him and he gave them immense meaning and significance.”

“How the hell was it that she’d always been so comfortable with him before, but as soon as she’d realized she was in love with him, as soon as she told him that … she was nervous all the time?”

“I actually told him to f**k himself. And that if he needed an ass to paddle, he should look in the mirror.”