“I looked at the people playing, walking, loafing, hurrying, or sauntering across the little park in front of us. How many terrible stories were there, just there in front of me, never to be spoken?”

“I always liked that time of day, when people were shutting up their shops, putting the town to bed for the night, going home to do normal stuff with their normal families. I wonder if they got to enjoy being normal, to know just how terrific it was, or whether it was just invisible to them like air? Sometimes I got so pissed off at how easy the normal people had it that I just wanted to walk down the street shaking them and screaming into their squishy self-satisfied faces.”

“Going into the Republican Party National Convention, in all objective truth, our non‑winning front‑runners are the sorriest collection of stuffed shirts, empty suits, self‑gratulatory ignorami, and outright wig‑flipped ding‑dongs in the history of the Republic.”

“I wondered if they got to enjoy being normal, to know just how terrific it was, or whether it was just invisible to them like air?”

“It wasn't that funny, but I laughed. There wouldn't be much laughter in the world if people didn't like each other, because there sure as shit aren't that many good jokes.”

“So we fell asleep holding hands. If married couples got to do this all the time, shit if I could understand how there were ever divorces, or even fights.”

“I would take it as a personal favor if you would use the term Ambient Temperature Risen American.”“Ha, ha, ha.” He saw that Reagan was not smiling. “Ah, of course, anyway, I just wanted to say that many of my close friends are at ambient temperature, in fact many of them have become estates, which I think we have to learn to think of as they are every bit as much a person as any corporation, or any other corporation if the estate happens to be incorporated or own a corporation, because we have to think about that. And I want you to know that I can identify very strongly with that, because, in fact, many of my ancestors are ambient temperature also, as I know from having attended their baptisms.”