“Especially with four insanely angry, sword-carrying pirates bearing down on you, followed closely by an alien with a genetic malfunction that posed like Elvis Presley and looked slightly like a cross between a koala and a cuddly dog.”

“I was like Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley on Ed Sullivan, I tells ya, punished for the crime of being sexy. (him on the telly , me in a dingy alley... any analogy will break down under scrutiny.)”

“Does koala bear poop smell like cough drops?”

“Over Kyle's shoulder she could see grandpa, looking like a cross between a grizzly bear and a giant pissed-off blowfish.”

“I remember the revelation it was to me when I realized I'd rather be smart in the way Elvis Presley was than in the way, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein was. The thing was, you could imagine you could be smart like Wittgenstein by just thinking hard enough, but Elvis just had it. It was almost spiritual. A kind of grace.”

“I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.”