“There is hope for you yet.-Einstein the Labrador Retriever via scrabble tiles”

“...art is weaker than life - in the end I have a bag of letters to scrabble into order - rune tiles to cast my fate...”

“I'd thought Clarice's smile was both too dim and friendly and too wide and white, so that she looked to me like the love child of a cannibal and a Labrador retriever.”

“I opened both eyes. Dread was sitting on my chest as if it were an animal. I mean, dread so real it had physical presence, like a Labrador retriever I could teach tricks to. Here, Dread. Sit, Dread. Roll over, Dread. Play dead, Dread.”

“My personal favorite version of the game, Speed Scrabble, is played with tiles only. Each player selects seven tiles. At the call to start, each player turns over his or her tiles. Using these letters, the player creates an individual grid of six letters, with two or possibly three intersecting words, selecting one letter to pass along. The first player to finish calls out the word switch, passes the rejected tiles to the player at the right, and turns over two new tiles from the general pile. Each player then incorporates the new tiles into his or her grid, always rejecting one to pass along at the word switch. Obvious rejects are Q and Z, which usually get passed around. The game is played until the tiles are depleted and one person calls out the word finished. If no one has any questions about the winner's grid, the points on the tiles are added up. Losers deduct the number of points of the unused letters. Each round takes about fifteen or twenty minutes max...”

“That's the thing about being a Labrador retriever - you were born for fun. Seldom was your loopy, freewheeling mind cluttered by contemplation, and never at all by somber worry; every day was a romp. What else could there possibly be to life? Eating was a thrill. Pissing was a treat. Shitting was a joy. And licking your own balls? Bliss. And everywhere you went were gullible humans who patted and hugged and fussed over you.”