“I try not to laugh too loud, afraid a bark-like noise will be mistaken by any great whites lurking in the area as the distress call of a juvenile seal.”

“I have a totally unhealthy and unrealistic fear of being eaten by a great white shark. This is because I belong to a very specific demographic called American Child Whose Parents Made the Ill-Advised Decision To Allow Her To Watch the Movie Jaws At a Sleepover During Her Formative Years.”

“I don’t need to look at your primal, white-hot, mutant pirate eyes, big guy. Just forget that I’m there, and I’ll try to block out the fact that I ever met you. Basically we’ll just act like we do every day.”

“Mouse likes to drag you to uninhabited areas with no cell signal—all those places perfect for dying of exposure.”

“Hey, any idea why Australians speak something that sounds deceptively like English but isn’t? I mean, I’m trying to figure out why I can’t seem to converse with another human being who speaks the same language as I do.”

“I look around briefly at the other players like I always do before a game. Other than Queenie, Bill, and Talon, I don’t know any of them (and I don’t care enough about them to know them). But if there’s going to be any cordiality, any forced politeness or ‘Aw, shucks, let’s all just try to have a good time here tonight’ kind of blather, then now’s the time to get it out of the way before I get down to the business of screwing everyone out of their hopes and dreams.”

“Who are you? Rabbit and Souris call you ‘Alice,’ me and Dee call you ‘Faye.’ I just didn’t know if ‘Alice’ was your poker-playing, Southern Hemisphere name or what. Hey, I’m just trying to fit in here. If I should be introducing myself as ‘Clark,’ I want to know about it sooner rather than later so I don’t embarrass myself.”