“What do you put in that coffee? Two teaspoons of bitch powder?”

“First you have to buy powder, pistol powder, not the damp, and not as coarse as for a cannon. Then you have to put the powder in first, and get some felt off a door. And then you have to put the bullet in afterwards, and not the bullet before the powder, or it won't go off. Do you hear, Keller? or else it won't go off. Ha-ha! Isn't that a magnificent reason, friend Keller?”

“The difference between a translation and an original is not of the same order as the difference between powdered and steamed coffee.”

“Oh I can't stop drinking the coffee, I stop drinking the coffee and I stop doing the standing and the walking and the words-putting-into-sentence-doing.”

“Calvin is hammering nails into coffee table.Mom: CALVIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE COFFEE TABLE?!?Calvin: Is this some sort of trick question, or what?”

“Only a teaspoon of self-pity, girl. Every day give yourself a teaspoonful, but only a teaspoonful. Fill it up full, but only once! Don’t let yourself have more. You can’t live off it. But just a bit of it is like a tonic.”