“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.”

“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.”

“But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient. You go back to a cassette the way a detective sits and pours drinks for the elderly motel clerk who tells stories about the old days--you know you might be somewhat bored, but there might be a clue in there somewhere. And if there isn't, what the hell? It's not a bad time. You know you will waste time. You plan on it.”

“Some nights I would drive up Route 29 to the all-night Wal-Mart. I'd push a cart around with some paper towels inside to look like a real shopper, just to spy on married people. I just wanted to be near them, to listen to them argue...Married people fight over some dumb shit when they think there aren't any widowers eavesdropping. And they never think there are widowers eavesdropping.”--Rob Sheffield (Love is a Mix Tape)”

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

“I grew up on country radio. You know I'm a sucker for that 'we got no money but we got love' crap.”