“At the last minute, I couldn't wear the Hitler mustache because Tiger Stripe ate it; and then I didn't want to take my kitty and risk his coughing up some big Nazi hairball on someone's front stoop.”

“Just got done giving my cat a haircut and eating dinner. The two events are unrelated, though I might cough up a hairball later on.”

“Every time a book opens, an angel coughs up a hairball.”

“I’m as bouge as the next person. My mother was a waitress and my father was a bartender. People think I went to Yale and shit, because I have a vocabulary and I wear a suit. I wear a suit because I aspire to wear a fuckin’ suit. I didn’t work my whole fuckin’ life to wear a Hello Kitty fuckin’ wifebeater up here.”

“On my mental instant replay, I realized that obliquely comparing his family to the Nazis was maybe not my finest moment. He was quiet a second, and then he said, 'Did you know that Hitler anted to be an artist, but since he couldn't get into art school, he turned into a Nazi?' 'Yes, I remember that.' 'Just imagine if he got into art school, the whole world would be different.' I said, 'It just shows that people should be allowed to be who they are. If they can't, then they turn into nasty, sad people.' He started to laugh. 'What if you went to the art gallery, and the guy was like, "Here you see a beautiful Monet, and here on your left is an early Hitler." Wouldn't that be weird?' I couldn't think of any subtle way to turn it back around again. He said, 'You would go to the gift shop and buy Hitler postcards, and you'd go, "Oh, look at this beautiful Hitler. I'm going to hang it in my room!" And people would wear Hitler t-shirts.' 'Yes,' I said. 'That would have been better.”

“Of course I remember. I remember my aching back and the drizzle, and the throb of my piercing in the top of my ear. I'd left university because of him. I'd learnt that I didn't want to be anywhere he wasn't, that I physically couldn't stand it. I was eighteen; he was in his early thirties. I came up the lane and found him standing there, under the limes, wearing blue.”