“Strumming a ukulele just right can make you sound like a pro, even if you only know one chord.”

“Am I your special someone? Or just someone special?"--Janet”

“Women are really strange, if you think about it. But this was no ordinary woman. This was a succubus—a life sucking monster.”

“Another Mexican American in another class, approaches Victor after class, carrying his copy of Fahrenheit 451, required reading for the course. The student doesn't understand the reference to a salon. Victor explains that this is just another word for the living room. No understanding in the student's eyes. He tries Spanish: la salon. Still nothing. The student has grown up as a migrant worker. And Victor remembers the white student who had been in his class a quarter ago, who had written about not understanding racism, that there was none where he had grown up, in Wennatchee, that he has played with the children of his father's migrant workers without there being any hostility. His father's workers. Property. Property that doesn't know of living rooms. And Victor thought of what the man from Wennatchee knew, what the ROTC Mexican American knew, what the migrant worker knew. And he thought of getting up the next morning to go with Serena to St. Mary's for cheese and butter. And he knew there was something he was not doing in his composition classrooms.”

“There is one advantage to realizing that you're never going to get it right: you do begin to stop expecting everyone else to get it right too, which makes for less frustration when other people turn out to be just as human as you are.”

“It took me a while to realize that I was beginning to flirt with her. The food must have been poisoned.”

“But just remember: a woman's like a rose; if you treat her right, she'll bloom, if you don't, she'll wilt.”