“but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.”

“On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.”

“What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was damned if I could find it.”

“I didn't know about the rest of the class, but when Bastille Day eventually rolled around, I planned to stay home and clean my oven.”

“In New York I'd go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I've upped it to six or seven, mainly because I'm too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par with reading a book or devoting time to serious thought. It's not that the movies have gotten any more strenuous, it's just that a lot of people are as lazy as I am, and together we've agreed to lower the bar.”

“Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive.”

“The landscape is best described as 'pedestrian hostile.' It's pointless to try to take a walk, so I generally just stay in the room and think about shooting myself in the head.”