“The phrase what I want struck me. It contains so much entitlement, so many complications, but encompasses only what a person doesn't have.”

“If I'm a guy who doesn't seem so merry,It's just because I'm so misunderstood.When I was young I ate a dictionary,And that did not do me a bit of good.For I've absorbed so many words and phrases—They drive me dizzy when I want to speak.I start explaining but each person gazesAs if I spoke in Latin or in Greek.”

“I'm not greedy. I just want one person. The world is so big and there are so many people. But I only want one.”

“She loved him so much she concealed his name in many phrases, the inner meanings known only to her.”

“... it struck me as so hard to believe I was really getting what I wanted; it was always easier to feel the lack of something than the thing itself.”

“Some phone calls he doesn't say much and I know he called just to hear my voice. That's all he wants- to hear me tell him about my day, what the surf's like, what work's like. And that's humbling, knowing that your voice can mean so much to another person.”