“Because trying to think of how to ask a woman you’ve known for exactly two days if she’d be willing to get into a car with you and take a road trip across the country was something I hadn’t quite worked up to yet.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel when I’m around you: confused, but still satisfied.' I freeze, trying to figure out how to cancel it out and replace it with something that sounds a whole lot less like sex and a candy bar ad.”

“Okay, so English settlers brought rabbits with them to Australia to breed for food and stuff, right? But they escaped and basically started destroying the country, eating the vegetation, that kind of thing. So by the early 1900s, the government was trying to figure out a way to get rid of all the rabbits. Want to hear what their genius plan was? The rabbit-proof fence. Worked out great for the rabbits. Once they learned how to play badminton and got the hang of tennis on grass, they couldn’t remember how they ever lived without it. Supposedly there was something like six hundred million rabbits by 1950. But you’re missing the point. The point is that even though it was pretty obvious from the beginning it wasn’t working, they kept right on building it—two thousand miles of it.”

“You’re in the country of the kangaroo and the duck-billed platypus, and you’re asking ‘why is it a mushroom? Because it just IS.”

“Oh, Alice, you haven’t even had a taste of my romantic streak yet. And when the time’s right I don’t think I’ll have to ‘try’ to have my way with you. I just WILL.”

“Congratulations, Mousey, you’ve managed to insult every marsupial in the country in just under three kilometers.”

“That’s exactly where they send entry-level diplomats. After you cut your teeth on a few civil wars and a famine or two, you might get lucky and be given a plum post somewhere in the SECOND World.”