“As though all the world were a bad joke and she was the only one around who knew the punchline.”

“The joke is, we all have the same punchline.”

“Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?”

“And so the twins had remained virgins. Julia and Valentina watched all of their high school and college friends disappear one by one into the adult world of sex, until they were the only people they knew who lingered in the world of the uninitiated. "What was it like?" they asked each friend. The answers were vague. Sex was a private joke: you had to be there.”

“Sometimes I feel like the punchline of God's favorite joke.”

“He felt as if he had told a joke and they had missed the punchline and were leaning to him, wating for the kicker, the all-illuminating kicker that is found only in jokes; or as if someone had asked, "How you doing?" and the spring-and-strap arrangement in him had rusted and broken and he would never again be able to answer perfunctory questions the way other people did.”