It may be the first in what I trust will be a rapidly growing and influential genre--the novel designed on purpose to be excludedfrom the Booker short-list.

A day without an argument is like an egg without salt.

The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.

As for my father, few souls are less troubled. He can be simply pleased with us, pleased that we exist, and, from the vantage point of his wondrously serene old age, he contemplates our lives almost as if they were books he can dip into whenever he wants. His back pages, perhaps.

The kind of power mothers have is enormous.

It shone on everyone, whether they had a contract or not. The most democratic thing I'd ever seen, that California sunshine.

I think I want to be in love with you but I don't know how.