“Dog love is blind. For that matter, dog love is stupid.”

“Getting a Dog: She won this one easily, as I've already mentioned; I thought my graceful surrender would win me a concession or two down the line. i was wrong. Renee saw the dog not as a personal victory for her, but a huge favor she was doing me by teaching me the joys of being pissed on by an animal. This is just one of the adorable quirks of the dog, best friend God ever gave humanity in this crazy little world.”

“Love hurts. Love stinks. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to show them. But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“In some circles, admitting you love Top 40 radio is tantamount to bragging you gave your grandmother the clap, in church, in the front row at your aunt's funeral, but those are the circles I avoid like the plague or, for that matter, the clap.”

“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with thisquestion through the ages, and in the modern era, they havecome up with many different answers. According to the Westernphilosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan FrankSinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. Thestoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on thehoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary Schoolparking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit“Love Is Like Oxygen”—you get too much, you get too high,not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Lovebites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our timesall agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you toshow them.But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“Neither of us ever threw anything away. We madea lot of mix tapes while we were together. Tapes for making out, tapes for dancing, tapes for falling asleep. Tapes for doing the dishes, for walkingthe dog. I kept them all. I have them piled up on my bookshelves, spilling out of my kitchen cabinets, scattered all over the bedroom floor. I don’teven have pots or pans in my kitchen, just that old boom-box on the counter, next to the sink. So many tapes.”