“Man, that did his ego good. Matter of fact, she hit him with anything like that again, he was going to feel like he could bench-press a city bus. With a jet plane on its roof.”

“The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that? Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.”

“The fact is that Superman should be fat. He should be a lard-assed superhero with flabby arms, a beer gut, and soft muscles. ...when Superman bench-presses a Cadillac, he doesn't even break a sweat. It's like picking up a bag of feathers. Would Batman be buff if he bench-pressed feathers? Because that's essentially what Superman does every day.”

“... a man doesn't like to have his ego popped, especially when he prides himself on his sagacity, and then to be proved wrong by a man who claims he doesn't know anything.”

“Lucas hated the word. It was so easy to say, but it could honestly cut someone in half if they thought for a second that they were. Lucas was a confident man, but with his dyslexia, he never felt like he was smart. Fallon had never made him feel like he was less of a man; she always treated him like he was the smartest man in the room, until now. Now she had called him it.”

“Then she looked away, dismissing him as if she’d found him to be substandard.All right, then. She didn’t find him attractive. Good.In fact, he kept his head shaved to a glossy shine for just that reason. He was a man willing to do anything to discourage feminine attention.Because yeah, females could be vanity hounds and most preferred their dates to have hair. Black, blond, red, it didn’t matter, as long as the locks were thick and lustrous. And here was a news flash for littleMiss Giggles: when he allowed his to grow, it was dark brown, nearly jet, with hints of gold and worthy of a fucking lion.”