“TIMING TOASTGrook on how to char for yourselfThere's an art of knowing when.Never try to guess.Toast until it smokes and thentwenty seconds less.”

“Char bought a pack of clove cigarettes, claiming they tasted good, to which I ask why doesn't she just go suck on a clove so I don't have to inhale her perfumed second hand smoke?”

“There are stories you don't want to tell, and there are stories that scald your brainpan right down to the tongue at the mere thought of uttering. But you can't NOT. Even if you wait until your skull is nothing but a charred and smoking husk, the truth will still be in there, squirming.”

“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”

“The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney."...We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains Simone.And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." Simone swallows some wine. "Love affairs are like that," she says. "They are all like that.”

“Art isn't meaningless... It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so.”