“The thing about getting dumped generally, and getting dumped by Katherines in particular, was how utterly monotonous it was.”

“That's why people grow weary of listening to Dumpees obsess over their troubles: getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring.”

“The problem exactly is that she dumped me. That I'm alone. Oh my God, I'm alone again. And not only that, but I'm a total failure in case you haven't noticed. I'm washed up. I'm former. Formerly the boyfriend of Katherine XIX. Formerly a prodigy. Formerly full of potential. Currently full of shit.”

“When it comes to girls (and in Colin's case, it so often did), everyone has a type. Colin Singleton's type was not physical but linguistic: he liked Katherines. And not Katies or Kats or Kitties or Cathys or Rynns or Trinas or Kays or Kates or, god forbid, Catherines. K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. He had dated 19 girls. All of them had been named Katherine. And all of them- every single solitary one- had dumped him.”

“In the first century CE, Roman authorities punished St. Apollonia by crushing her teeth one by one with pliers. Colin often thought about this in relationship to the monotony of dumping: we have thirty-two teeth. After a while, having each tooth individually destroyed probably gets repetitive, even dull. But it never stops hurting.”

“Well, three reasons. First, because I've been thinking about our Theorem and I have a question. How does it work if you're gay?" "Huh?" "Well it's all graph-going up means boy dumps girls and graph going-down means girl dumps boy, right? But what if they're both boys?" "It doesn't matter. You just assign a position to each person. Instead of being 'b' and 'g', it could just as easily be 'b1' and 'g', it could just as easily be 'bi' and 'b2.' That's how algebra works.”

“But monotony doesn't make for painlessness. In the first century CE, Roman authorities punished St. Appollonia by crushing her teeth one by one with pliers. Colin often thought about this in relationship to the monotony of dumping: we have thirty two teeth. After a while, having each tooth individually destroyed probably gets repetitive, even dull. But it never stops hurting.”