“He was too tough to experience disappointments and resentments — negative affections. In this nihilist fin de siècle, he was affirmation. Right through to illness and death. Why did I speak of him in the past? He laughed, he is laughing, he is here. It's your sadness, idiot, he'd say.”

“You’re related to her?” I hear Mason say through the door. Then he laughs loudly. He has a great laugh. “Your name is Guy Love?” He barks out a laugh, louder this time. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“We need to get out of here. That's why I did this," he said dumbly, even though she was starting at him now like he was an idiot because he was repeating himself. And he was. Repeating himself and an idiot. Idiot wrapped in a moron. An idiot burrito.~Stryker”

“Growing up, Joe had adored his brother, Then he'd come to hate him. Now, he mostly didn't think about him. When he did, he had to admit, he missed his laugh.”

“I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.”

“He laughed. I suddenly wanted to laugh, to laugh with him, to sit here, or maybe outside in the rain, and just laugh with him. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even smile.”