“Our visual cortexes are wired to quickly recognize faces and then quickly subtract massive amounts of detail from them, zeroing in on their essential message: Is this person happy? Angry? Fearful? Individual faces may vary greatly, but a smirk on one is a lot like a smirk on another. Smirks are conceptual, not pictorial. Our brains are like cartoonists - and cartoonists are like our brains, simplifying and exaggerating, subordinating facial detail to abstract comic concepts.”

“As cheesy as this is gonna sound, everyone join hands."Alex looked from my face to our tangled fingers and smirked. "As much as I like this, I'm thinking now's not the time to sing 'Kumbaya'.”

“It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.”

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

“One more question." Finn had a smirk on his face. "Do you use…" "If you say litter box, I will empty that pitcher of water on your head." She thought for a second and added, "Before I slash the tires on your car." "My baby?" Kess grinned. "Kidding! I'd just key it." She turned to Burke who was smirking at the look on his brother's face. "Is he always like this?”

“He was smirking the smirkiest smirk of all smirks to date. I laughed, even that smirk was hard to ignore. F**k, maybe I should call him Mr Smirk.”