“It wasn't that I wanted to be a writer; I just didn't want to be stupid.”

“What the hell was that?""Puma," he said. "Mountain lion.""I knew that was a lion." She stopped suddenly. "You didn't hurt him, did you?""Marcie, he wanted to eat you! Are you worried about his soul or something?""I just wanted him to go away," she said. "I didn't want him to go dead."-Marcie and Ian”

“As I sit today, I am a genuine, often pleasant person. I am able to imitate a human being for long spurts of time, do solid work for a reputable organization, and have, over the breadth of time, proven to be an attentive father and husband. So how to reconcile my past with my current circumstances? Drugs, it seems to me, do not conjure demons, they access them. Was I faking it then, or am I faking it now? Which, you might ask, of my two selves did I make up?”

“I now inhabit a life I don't deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon”

“If marriage is about deciding to love on a daily basis, I have woken up to a no-brainer every day since.”

“The onset of adulthood is an organic, creeping process. No one wakes up one day and decides, "Lo, on this day I shall forever put away childish things and begin clipping coupons to go to Wal-Mart.”

“When I was very little, my dad would tell me stories about "Billy the Lucky Pup." Billy's doggie buddies were constantly getting in jams, careening toward the brink of something, and Billy would always, always come charging over the hill. With no more than a "ruff, ruff," he would signal that the cavalry had arrived - that Billy was on the case, and disaster had once again been avoided. In those months of relentless havoc, I'd arrive at an odd moment of consideration, and I would think, Where the fuck is that dog, anyway?”