“His hair was parted neatly on the left side in a way that he would have found absolutely horrifying.”

“Anyone have some mints or some gum?" Bonnie asked. No one did, and she turned to Joe Hill Conley. She scrutinized him a moment, then, using her fingers, combed his part over to the left side. "That looks better," she said. Nearly two decades later, the little hair he has left remains parted by Bonnie's invisible hand.”

“How horrified he would have been if, seven years ago, when he had just come from abroad, someone had told him that there was no need to seek or invent anything, that his rut had long been carved out for him and determined from all eternity, and that, however he twisted and turned, he would be that which everybody was in his position. He could not have believed it. Had he not wished with all his soul to establish a republic in Russia, then to become a Napoleon himself, a philosopher, a tactician, the defeater of Napoleon? Had he not seen the possibility and passionately wished to transform depraved mankind and bring his own self to the highest degree of perfection? ... He sometimes comforted himself with the thought that he happened to be leading his life just so, in the meantime; but then he would be horrified by another thought, that it was just so, in the meantime, that so many people had entered this life, this club, as he had, with all their teeth and hair, and come out of it with not a single tooth or hair left.”

“There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life:1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache.3. He would one day rule the world....Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words.”

“As an only child, Cassandra found the well-worn paths of sibling interaction fascinating and horrifying in equal parts.”

“He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate.”