“This bulletin brought to you from the Department of Duh.”

“The students lurked on the edges of their teachers' lives for years, and brought bulletins from their own lives, which over time began to include lovers, ambitions, an upward trajectory.”

“My tears brought no sense of release or relief. Their flight felt like the lightest, coldest touch of a departing lover.”

“There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.”

“As many as six out of ten American adults have never read a book of any kind, and the bulletins from the nation’s educational frontiers read like the casualty reports from a lost war.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing. I’m a vampire.”“Duh.”“And you’re not.”“Again: duh.”“I could hurt you. I could lose control.”“If you were anyone else, I’d have kneecapped you by now.”