“Also consider that someday, when you’re dead and rotted, kids with their baby teeth will sit in their time-geography class and laugh about how stupid you were.”

“Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950’s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.”

“Kids, she says. When they’re little, they believe everything you tell them about the world. As a mother, you’re the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. But after they hit some magic age, it’s just the opposite. After that, you’re either a liar or a fool or a villain.”

“Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that's usually how you end up crying? How is it you can keep mutating and still be the same deadly virus?”

“The muffled thunder of dialogue comes through the walls, then a chorus of laughter. Then more thunder. Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.”

“If you’re lis­ten­ing to this, you know that I’m dead.”

“More and more, for the stupid little kid, that was the idea . . .That if enough people looked at you, you’d never need anybody’s attention ever again.That if someday you were caught, exposed, and revealed enough, then you’d never be able to hide again. There’d be no difference between your public and your private lives.That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you’d never want to own or do another thing.That if you could eat or sleep enough, you’d never need more.That if enough people loved you, you’d stop needing love.That you could ever be smart enough.That you could someday get enough sex.These all became the little boy’s new goals. The illusions he’d have for the rest of his life. These were all the promises he saw in the fat man’s smile”