“One day, in a grocery store, I swept clean a shelf of microbrew beer for my husband and three giant jars of mustard, leaving none for future shoppers. It was victory tinged with guilt. What would the next expat shopper think, when looking for beer or mustard? I couldn't afford to think about them. Every man for himself, in modern China!”

“A girl half my age swept by and slammed two giant tankard filled with beer on the table. Ragnvald held his up. I smashed my tankard against his. Beer splashed. We raised the tankard and pretended to take much bigger gulps than we did.”

“I want a beer. I want a giant, ice-cold bottle of beer and shower sex.”

“I sat down and tried to write a story."Ian MacArthur is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight."That was the first sentence. The problem was that I just couldn't think of the next one. After cleaning my room three times, I decided to leave Ian alone for a while because I was starting to get mad at him.”

“I want to fill a jar with a lot of clapping, and sell my applause next to the applesauce in a grocery store. You can eat the praise you didn’t earn, but did pay for.”

“I've got to think that that was unethical," Joshua said."Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed.""How is it like a mustard seed?""You don't know, do you? Doesn't seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?”