“Not for the first time in my life I had made it to the top. For some reason this made me hanker for a chili dog with chopped onions under a blanket of processed American cheese.”

“Laura made a great chili. She used lean meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice and a pitch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot. He had even written down the recipe, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura's chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay-it was certainly edible, but it had not been Laura's chili.”

“The black asphalt wouls shimmer with vapors I had a theory about those vapors...not released by the sun but by a huge onion buried under the city. This onion made us cry... I thought about the giant onion, that remarkable bulb of sadness.”

“I'm not a person whom the sight of olive oil repels, and I love Greek cooking. We had onion soup with grated cheese on top; then the souvlaka, which comes spiced with lemon and herbs, and flanked with chips and green beans in oil and a big dish of tomato salad. Then cheese, and halvas, which is a sort of loaf made of grated nuts and honey, and is delicious. And finally the wonderful grapes of Greece.”

“The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.”

“Last night I'd made love to a woman for the first and last time. It had been amazing and I had a memory that would shape the rest of my life.”