“Don't be ridiculous, Charlie, people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It's the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates.”

“So I'm like getting some perspective now - like when you're a kid and you think it sucks that you have to eat hydrogenated peanut butter on your PBJ, and then you see one of those starving commercials kids with flies in their eyes, who don't even have a sandwich - and you're all, 'Well, that sucks.”

“Author's WarningIf you're buying this book as a gift for your grandma or a kid, you should be aware that it contains cusswords as well as tasteful depictions of cannibalism and people in their forties having sex. Don't blame me. I told you.”

“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.”

“. . . You seem upset, Charlie. Is something wrong?Charlie: No, no, I’m okay, I just had to take directions from a mute beaver in a fez to get here, it’s unsettling.”

“Mr. Fresh looked up. "The book says if we don't do our jobs everything could go dark, become like the Underworld. I don't know what the Underworld is like, Mr. Asher, but I've caught some of the road show from there a couple of times, and I'm not interested in finding out. How 'bout you?""Maybe it's Oakland," Charlie said."What's Oakland?""The Underworld.""Oakland is not the Underworld!""The Tenderloin?" Charlie suggested.”

“This is the man who called the fire department when the toilet backed up, and I'm asking him for help. What was I thinking? Why am I attracted to weak men?”