“I like that hot air balloon.' I pointed to the ceiling where an antique looking wooden hot air balloon hung.'Yeah, I like it too. Partly because it's cool looking, but also partly because of the irony. It weighs a ton. In this office, anything can fly. No matter what is weighing it down. Even wooden balloons. Cool, huh?”

“I’m building a hot air balloon out of my love for you. I’m starting with the hot air, and then I’m going to surround that with saran wrap, because after all, I’m only using leftovers.”

“We should all have personal hot air balloons and drift serenely through the clouds.”

“He sat on the edge of my bed. He didn't say anything at first, just stared at my toenails. I curled them under instinctively and immediately was worried that I'd messed up my painting job. I let them uncurl. Only one was marred. I used my thumb to rub most of the polish off of it and then I stared at my foot, which suddenly looked so vulnerable and imperfect with the one toe ringed in hot pink polish but bare on the inside of the nail. Like I'd started but had forgotten to finish being beautiful.”

“Write - because you will explode if you don't, your brain will expand with words like a balloon filling with air....”

“When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.”

“Gloria watched the swollen white orb of a hot-air balloon rising over Navy Pier and knew she had to break it off with Oliver, for he was the type who would never enjoy hot-air balloons, Van Morrison songs, or mess, whether from orgasm or otherwise. But who was she to be dreaming about mess today?”