“The word "Yankee" itself, I was informed, came from that simplest of Dutch names - Jan.”

“Her name was Janice, but I called her Jan because she was born in December—just like Chris T.
”

“No one said a word; it was as if they were waiting for me to retract my question. Jan's hand found mine and held it."What the hell is this? A wake?" My grandpa came out of the house carrying a tray of buns.”

“I've barely said five words to you. What indication could you possibly have that I am a Yankee?" "Well, we could start with the words 'what indication.' Someone from south of the Mason-Dixon would have said, 'Who the hell are you calling a Yankee?' Then we would have fought.”

“When my father-in-law, Jan Vuijst, a Dutch Reformed minister, was on his deathbed, I had a deeply intimate conversation with him - as it turned out, my last conversation with him. He said to me, 'It was a privilege to have lived.' The soulful gratitude of that simple statement will never leave me.”

“I rearranged the letters of the word “neologism” to make the word neologism itself a neologism, as well as an anagram. The new word I made? It happens to be the name of the spaceship I’m building: Moon Legs I.”