“I wish you had fucked her. Then you’d know. Then you’d know the sublime … Her asshole, for example. It’s like a stern coquettish spoiled secretary working for Himmler—”

“I swear, Oliver, when did you become such a stick-in-the-mud?”“I’ve always been a stick-in-the-mud.” Her brother cast her a thin smile. “I just hid it beneath all the debauchery.”She sniffed. “I wish you’d hide it again. It’s quite annoying.”

“I’m not punishing you.’ ‘No?’ ‘No. You’d know if I was. Trust me.”

“You got a girl who’s worth it … you spoil her rotten. You let her know she’s precious, not convince her of that shit, because it’s not about convincing. It’s about understanding it’s just fuckin’ true.”

“He had since forever been working on a book called Uncanny Blossom. When Leon had told him, Billy had said, “I had no idea you were entering the Shit Title Olympics.” “If you didn’t swim in your sump of ignorance you’d know that title’s designed to fuck with the French. Neither word’s translatable into their ridiculous language.”

“If I knew what you’d do, exactly when you knew what you’d do, then I’d either be you or I’d be God. And we both know I’m not you.”