“Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant.”

“Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant, did you ever notice that?”

“I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants.”

“Sometimes, friends drift in and out of our lives like fashion accessories—in one season and out the next.”

“A while back, my friend Graydon Carter mentioned that he was opening a restaurant in New York. I cautioned him against this, because it’s my theory that owning a restaurant is the kind of universal fantasy everyone ought to grow out of, sooner rather than later, or else you will be stuck with the restaurant. There are many problems that come with owning a restaurant, not the least of which is that you have to eat there all the time. Giving up the fantasy that you want to own a restaurant is probably the last Piaget stage.”

“Mostly you meet friends when traveling by accident, like by sitting next to them on the train, or in a restaurant, or in a holding cell.”