“[T]he anti-vitriol vitriol is getting ugly.”

“The most beautiful faces have some ugly in them.”

“I'd forgotten this about women: so many conditions. A man shouldn't take them to heart, and yet he does, because he doesn't want to be alone.”

“He knows, as all the cleverest ones do, that no human being is so interesting that he can't make himself more interesting still by acting retarded at random intervals. ”

“He looked like a being who'd voyaged back through time from a world that had overcome illness, pain, and conflict.”

“His thoughts were clearly still shoving him further away, toward some ultimate dark drama that he might or might not have actually lived through but whose telling would let out the pressure inside his skull.”

“I've been told my old city possesses a 'thriving arts scene,' whatever that is; personally, I think artists should lie low and stick to their work, not line-dance through the parks.”