“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

“George,we're the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we're from Hollywood, California,we're really hard-rocking motherfuckers, and we think youshould produce our record.”

“This is the thing about school dances. They make like it's supposed to be this other-worldly thing, but really it's just the people you see every day dressed up, standing in the gym in the dark with Red Hot Chili Peppers playing.”

“Laura made a great chili. She used lean meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice and a pitch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot. He had even written down the recipe, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura's chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay-it was certainly edible, but it had not been Laura's chili.”

“What is all the racket about? Did you put red pepper on the lollypops?”

“I don’t like chili, unless I’m wearing a jacket.”