“Kissing him last night at the pep rally had been like kissing an underpass.”

“She's sweet but too apocalyptic. You try kissing someone good-night who's just told you for the umpteenth time that the world's experiencing its last disgusting paroxysm before Rapture.”

“The time he'd cheated on Syl, Syl had seen through him, broken off their engagement, and cheated on him with Charles, which had fried his ass possibly worse than any single other ass frying he'd ever had, in a life that, it recently seemed, was simply a series of escalating ass fries.”

“Thomas: Wow, that treehouse is like twice the size of our actual house.Pam (whispering): Don't say 'like.'Me: Oh, ha ha, let him say what he wants, let's not be--Thomas: That treehouse is twice the size of our actual house.”

“Dad had once said, Trust your mind, Rob. If it smells like shit but has writing across it that says Happy Birthday and a candle stuck down in it, what is it?Is there icing on it? he'd said.Dad had done that thing of squinting his eyes when an answer was not quite there yet.”

“Father," she said late one night. "I can't keep up. Our goats are dying. We're going to have to ask the neighbors for help.""Have we ever done that before?" he said."We've never needed help before," said Capable."Well I'm against it," he said. "If we haven't done it before, it stands to reason that this time is the first time we've done it, which means that, relative to what we've done in the past, this is different, which I am very much against, as I always have been, as you well know. I have consistently been very very consistent about this.”

“Somehow: Molly.He heard her in the entryway. Mol, Molly, oh boy. When they were first married they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? And then they would - Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone's affection for you expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he'd ever -She came in flustered and apologetic, a touch of anger in her face. He'd embarrassed her. He saw that. He'd embarrassed her by doing something that showed she hadn't sufficiently noticed him needing her. She'd been too busy nursing him to notice how scared he was. She was angry at him for pulling this stunt and ashamed of herself for feeling angry at him in his hour of need, and was trying to put the shame and anger behind her now so she could do what might be needed.All of this was in her face. He knew her so well.Also concern.Overriding everything else in that lovely face was concern.She came to him now, stumbling a bit on a swell in the floor of this stranger's house.”