“Maybe more of us should have plots. Let's take them out of books and put them back in life where they belong.”

“One travels long distances not solely for large gatherings, but for something more intangible. I have always gone out on a limb for love. A dangerous, romantic, disappointing way to live.”

“I view game shows as welfare for the hyperactive.”

“I shall introduce this city and its occupants as a series of objects whose relationship cannot be told with any certainty. Though violence may connect them, though pity, compassion, hope may marry one thing to another, still all that is in process cannot be judged, and that which has passed has gone beyond judgment, which leaves us again, with lives and belongings, places, shuttling here and there, hapless, benighted, discordant.”

“People either have comedy or they don't. You can't teach it to them.”

“--Let us make a pact, she said. To madness at every juncture!”

“If you feel like you have to have them for some reason, tell me and we'll take them out together. Promise?""If you promise not to tell the whole school about this.""I won't tell them anything. Deal?""Deal.""I think we should seal it."I gave a jittery laugh. "With a handshake?""I was thinking more like a kiss.”