“My Dad was sad that he saw us working so hard on something that was destined to fail.”

“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”

“My dad was always snoozing on the couch, like Dagwood Bumstead. He was a lazy motherfucker. God bless him. He was always working on some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. This is what my dad was like: I'd say, Hey, Dad, we studied penguins today in school. He'd say, Yeah? I'm a penguin fucker from way back. Dad, I saw a giraffe at the zoo today. Yeah? I'm a giraffe fucker from way back. That's my dad. My dad was a giraffe fucker.”

“Within a week or two the calm returned between us, but something was missing. Dad could feel it, too. The first casualty of distrust, I learned, is familiarity. My father saw me as a slightly different person now.”

“In a good economy, people work hard to succeed. In a bad economy, people work hard to not fail.”

“We burn so hard, but we shed so little light; it makes us crazy and sad.”