“Because that’s where I keep my Great Big Book of Manners by Emily Post and I want to beat you with it.”

“I am who I am, a big dork who makes mistakes and deals the best way I can. I’m going to keep making mistakes and being a big dork because that’s who I am. You can’t deal with it, then you best walk out that door because that’s the way it is.”

“I keep my love in the fridge, next to my meat, because you simply can’t beat it.”

“...I know I’ve broken all the rules of all the games, that all the great players and best love calculators recommend that you play, if you want to make someone like you a lot. But that’s okay, because I give up. I’ve got my coffee sitting in my San Francisco cup, I’ve got Kona island and a working beating heart that’s not cold, hard, or numb—very workable and capable of loving, breaking, mending and repeating. So that’s just what I’ll do. Because I’m too tired. Too tired uping all nighting wasting my precious timing wishing it was your heart pumping, wanting me— like I used to want you.”

“I want the woman with me who keeps my heart beating.”

“Whenever anyone declares having read a book of mine I am disappointed by the error. That’s because my books are not to be read in the sense usually called reading: the only way it seems to me to approach the novels that I write is to catch them in the same manner that one catches an illness.”