“Tape record your parents' laughter”

“He thought of his old tapes, the ones he'd had for years, the ones he'd used over and over again. Their silence was always different to the silence of a new tape: it was loaded, prickly with things recorded and erased; a silence that was like ghosts. That house was an old tape masquerading as a new one. It had recorded and erased, but it was pretending it had just come out of the cellophane. It had ghosts, but it wasn't owning up to them.”

“The Worldwide Parental Anxiety System is failing if this many of us have made sex tapes.”

“right' i said. 'but first, we need the car. and after that, the cocaine. and then the tape recorder, for special music, and some acapulco shirts.”

“The danger of sending your children to college was that they would be contaminated by subversive forces, bad influences and bawdy women." Rolled with laughter. Parent's fear, college student's desire.”

“You can’t compare the taste of organic and non organic fruits and vegetables. Organic tastes like a ten-minute trumpet solo in your mouth, and non organic tastes like a thirty second tape recording that’s been listened to a thousand times.”