“The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay? 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.' The first single. It's effing brilliant, right?... That's what everybody wants... They don't want a twenty-four-hour hump sesh, they don't want to be married to you for a hundred years.They just want to hold your hand.”

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.”

“There's no such thing as a soulmate...and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”

“Do you want to guess what's in here?" I asked Dash."I think I've got it figured out already. There's a new supply of red notebooks in there, and you want us to fill them in with clues about the works of, say, Nicholas Sparks.""Who?" I asked. Please, no more broody poets. I couldn't keep up."You don't know who Nicholas Sparks is?" Dash asked.I shook my head."Please don't ever find out," he said.”

“You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here’s a hint—ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn’t just the women. It’s the great male fantasy—all it takes is one dance to know that she’s the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know—this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don’t want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately.”

“The Beatles.”“What about The Beatles?”“They nailed it.”“Nailed what?”“Everything.”“What do you mean?”Dev takes his arm and puts it right against mine, skin to skin, sweat on sweat, touch on touch. Then he glides his hand into mine and intertwines our fingers.“This,” he says. “This is why The Beatles got it.”“I’m afraid I’m not following…”“Other bands, it’s about sex. Or pain. Or some fantasy. But The Beatles, they knew what they were doing.You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?”“What?”‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can’t hide. Every single successful love song of the past fifty years can be traced back to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.”

“I wanted to like her and I wanted her to like me and that was more want than I had saddled myself with in many a moon.”