“The land of embarrassment and breakfast.”

“Our fiction is not merely in flight from the physical data of the actual world…it is, bewilderingly and embarrassingly, a gothic fiction, nonrealistic and negative, sadist and melodramatic – a literature of darkness and the grotesque in a land of light and affirmation…our classic [American] literature is a literature of horror for boys”

“Now how about waffles for breakfast? Or is too late for breakfast?”Mitch rested back in his chair. “Maybe too late for breakfast, but it’s never too late for waffles.”

“Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom.”

“Why are breakfast food breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast?""Hazel, eat.""But why?" I asked. "I mean seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an egg, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich.”

“At breakfast!' said Louise in an awed voice. 'A man who can read poetry at breakfast would be capable of anything.”