“I have three sets of humor. One I keep in a bag of salt, because it’s the dry one.
”

“Do you have a sleeping bag?” I stared at him. “No. I lost it in the great salt-dip of ’06.”

“I have three step brothers and one step sister. It’s like a staircase, and I am the slinky.”

“she doesn’t really have a sense of humor. I think she’d like to have one—it’s just that she doesn’t quite understand what jokes are for.”

“This pen is my only outlet, my only voice, because I have no one else to speak to, no mind but my own to drown in and all the lifeboats are taken and all the life preservers are broken and I don’t know how to swim I can’t swim I can’t swim and it’s getting so hard. It’s getting so hard. It’s like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what’s the point of screaming if you’ll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in here. No one will ever hear me again.”

“The only cheese I have in the apartment is a wedge of Brie in the refrigerator and before leaving I place the entire slice--it’s a really big rat--along with a sun-dried tomato and a sprinkling of dill, delicately on the trap, setting it.”