“I was stealing salt shakers again. Ten, sometimes twelve a night, shoving them up my sleeves, smuggling them out of bars and diners and anywhere else I could find them. In the morning, wherever I woke up, I was always covered in salt. I was cured meat. I had become beef jerky. Even as a small child, I knew it would one day come to this.”

“The fan was spinning and as the shadows passed over the white ceiling I let my eyes unfocus until all of it looked like a universe being born or a planet unraveling, some creation or catastrophe depending on which way gravity was going and where you were standing. So instead of Elizabeth Taylor I thought about stars and how little I knew about them, and how if I was an explorer and I had to sail a boat across the ocean without rador or an electronic compass I’d be screwed because the only constellations I knew were the Big Dipper and Little Dipper and I always got them confused. And even though I knew I’d never have to sail that boat I still wished I knew more about stars and other things. And I wished I could remember lying in the back yard as a kid with my hands locked behind my head, looking up at the night sky and dreaming. But I couldn’t, because it wasn’t something I ever did. It would have been a nice memory though”

“I’d never actually talked to a deaf person before but I’d been swimming and gotten water stuck in my ears lots of times, felt that underwater silence as I shook my head and watched people’s mouths moving without hearing the words, so I knew what it was like for her. I could empathize.”

“If stealing a few saltshakers was wrong I didn't want to be right.”

“And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it.”

“There’s nothing about me on the jacket because I have no credentials. I majored in English at school, but I only took one creative writing class. I think I got a B. And I never really thought about getting an MFA. I’m too spiteful to take criticism constructively and I’m only comfortable being honest about people behind their backs, so workshops or group critiques were never what I was looking for. For years I just wrote in journals and didn’t really worry about turning any of it into stories or stuff for other people to read, so I guess I developed my writing style by talking to myself, like some homeless people do. Only I used a pen and paper instead of just freaking out on the street. If they switched to a different medium they might be better off. It would probably help if they had someplace to live too.”

“Buy this book or I’ll take it personally, and I will have my revenge. I’ll steal your girlfriend or make out with your dad. It doesn’t matter to me. Whichever will hurt worse. My vengeance knows no sexuality. You don’t want this. Your dad does though. Yeah, like you didn’t know your parents’ marriage was a sham. Come on. Open your fucking eyes.”