“Either as a detective I was a good sofa-pillow crocheter, or else I was playing in the identical luck of the piccolo player when the eccentric millionaire filled up the instruments of each member of the German band with $5 gold pieces.”

“For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter’s ‘Barr-Bag,’ which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2,163 pearl buttons; nor of — in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel — or Suing Sophie!”

“OCD focuses on the negative. I didn't think to myself, My praying will save my grandma. Instead, I thought, If I don't pray, my grandma will die for sure.”

“Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player."That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player."How can you tell?"It's PIPING hot!"Then blow on it first!”

“OCD is not a disease that bothers; it is a disease that tortures.”

“Alcohol whipped me. Alcohol and I had many, many marvelous times together. We laughed, we talked, we danced at the party together; then one day I woke up and the band had gone home and I was lying in the broken glass with a shirt full of puke and I said, 'Hey, man, the ball game's up'.”

“Music on the radio. When I went in, the big bands were just getting up a good head of steam. Now every song sounds like it's about fucking.”