“I sensed weeping and salvation in the air, two of my least favorite things.”

“My mom insisted on saying such things, even though almost no one understood what she meant. My Dad sometimes called her Addlebrain because she read so many books.”

“I figure heaven will be a scratch-and-sniff sort of place, and one of my first requests will be the Driftwood in its prime, while it was filled with our life. And later I will ask for the smell of my dad's truck, which was a combination of basic truck (nearly universal), plus his cologne (Old Spice), unfiltered Lucky Strikes, and when I was very lucky, leaded gasoline. If I could have gotten my nose close enough I would have inhaled leaded gasoline until I was retarded. The tendency seemed to run in my family; as a boy my uncle Crandall had an ongoing relationship with a gas can he kept in the barn. Later he married and divorced the same woman four times, sometimes marrying other women in between, including one whose name was, honestly, Squirrelly.”

“He sang like an angel, he was faithful to God and he waited honorablyfor the wife he believed God chose for him. He made two daughters whoshone like mirrors in the direct sun; he blazed his path with a scytheand his broad shoulders, and he was who he chose to be, which is thehardest and bravest thing a man can do. He looked at us, his parents,his sisters, his whole crooked family, and he flexed his jaw muscles,packed up his truck, and drove away.”

“I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.”

“That cat doesn't have a lick of sense,' I said, sighing.Well, honey, he's not right in the head,' Dad said, flipping his cigarette into the front yard.I glared at him. 'And just what do you mean by that?'Dad counted on his fingers. 'He's cross-eyed; he jumps out of trees after birds and then doesn't land on his feet; he sleeps with his head smashed up against the wall, and the tip of his tail is crooked.'Oh yeah? Well, how about this: he once got locked in a basement by evil Petey Scroggs in the middle of January and survived on snow and little frozen mice. When I'm cold at night he sleeps right on my face. Of that whole litter of kittens he came out of he's the only one left. One of his brothers didn't even have a butthole.'I stand corrected. PeeDink is a survivor.”

“I am hyper vigilant and would be dangerous if threatened.... If someone broke into my house or attacked me in the street, it's THEM I would fear for.... But as Yo La Tengo recently put it so succinctly: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.”