“Faulkner had an egg carton filled with periods and throughout his writing career, used nearly all of them.”

“I feel like a carton of eggs holding up an elephant.”

“The definition of a strength that we will use throughout this book is quite specific: consistent near perfect performance in an activity.”

“Carlos was known to the pushcart peddlers as the most skillful carton-flattener in the Lower East Side section of New York City. Carlos' business was to go around to small stores that had clean cardboard cartons which they wished to be rid of. With two or three deft motions, Carlos would flatten the cartons and carefully stack them on his pushcart. Carlos was the only flattener in the business who could stack to a height of twelve feet without the cartons slipping off.”

“A brick could be used to represent society as a whole. But to represent society as a half, I’d recommend using either a full carton of half and half, or a half-full carton of whole milk.
”

“For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom. Throughout many periods of history – perhaps most – it can seem as if the whole impulse of fashion has been to look maximally ridiculous. If one could be maximally uncomfortable as well, the triumph was all the greater.”