“Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a dispiritingly self-limiting level, anyone does it in the first place.”

“Dad followed his I’m-So-Disappointed speech with a lecture on career opportunities. “You’re going to study literature and get a job doing what?” he said. “Literaturizing?”

“Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?”

“There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.”

“How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?”

“Why aren't the two of you together?'The directness of her question throws me. 'I don't know. Sometimes I think there are only so many opportunities... to get together with someone. And we've both screwed up so many times - that we've missed our chance.”