“Would you agree," he said, "that man's sole duty is to produce as much pleasure as possible?""Only if the pleasure produced is equivalent to the diminution of pain." My father crossed his arms. "And only if one man's pleasure is as important as any other's.”

“What's life without risk," my father said. "Nothing but mauvais foi [bad faith]”

“My father was right: people are always leaving. They fall in and out of your life like shadows.”

“She especially liked my bedside lamp, which had a five-sided porcelain shade. Unlit, the shade seemed like bumpy ivory. Lit, each panel came to life with the image of a bird: a blue jay, a cardinal, wrens, an oriole, and a dove. Kathleen turned it off and on again, several times. "How does it do that?""The panels are called lithophanes." I knew because I'd asked my father about the lamp, years ago. "The porcelain is carved and painted. You can see it if you look inside the shade.""No," she said. "It's magic. I don't want to know how it's done.”

“What about stakes in the heart?" I asked now. He frowned, the center of his mouth pursed while its corners curled downward. "Anyone will die from a stake in the heart," he said. "And anyone will die if they're severely burned, including vampires.”

“The often repeated delight that families express in recognizing and experiencing togetherness is wholly contained by the way the pleasure of a collective experience is produced by consumption and reinforces consumerism. ”

“Even a dull life could make worthwhile reading, he said, provided the writer paid sufficient attention to detail.”