“The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture finished and put inside boxes.”

“Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can using only their hands and feet make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.”

“Think, for a moment, of the countless happy childhood hours you spent with this amazing device: Drawing perfect horizontals, drawing perfect verticals, drawing really spastic diagonals, trying to scrape away the silver powder from the window so you could look inside.”

“You would think that, by sheer chance, there would come a time when you daughter's two dances would be close together, ideally near the beginning. But the dance studio makes sure this never happens, using the same computer scheduling program that the cable-TV company uses to make sure that the technician, for whom you have been waiting eleven hours, rings your doorbell only when you have just commenced pooping.”

“He felt a momentary pang of regret that he had not spent more time with his beloved wife. But it passed when he remembered that the reason he’d gone to sea in the first place was that he had never really liked his beloved wife.”

“Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.”

“I don’t have much of a life now, and from what I’m told I’ll have even less where I’m going. If there’s something wonderful on this ship, I want to know what it is. This is my only chance.”-Peter”