“It felt like life had thrown a pie right in my face. And that pie was full of bricks.”

“I slid back into our booth. My pie was still there. For some reason, that seemed like it shouldn't be. Hadn't I been gone a long time? I felt like a death should resonate, like the whole diner should have felt it. The pie should have crumbled into dust by now. People should be somber. But the Goth kids still laughed over their coffee, the drunks were still drunk, and my pie refused to mourn.”

“Excuse me?" I said, palms down on the Formica tabletop. "Coffee? I thought we came here for pie." "I don't eat the kind of pie they serve here." I felt a flash of heat go through my stomach. I knew firsthand the kind of pie Ranger liked.”

“Humor without sadness is just pie in the face”

“it was a delusive pie, the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath.”

“It's like the old pie-in-the-face routine: it stops being funny when it starts being you.”