If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it. If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil. If you seek an adventure, may this song sing you away to blissful escape. If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions. All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not. May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them. May you find perfection, and know it by name.

Charlie Asher: Mrs. Ling, is that duck wearing trousers? Mrs. Ling: Could be . . . . You hear of paper-wrap chicken? This duck in pants.

Enchantment and seduction were fine means of persuasion, but when time is short, an awkward but quick concussion could better serve a girl's purpose.

People always stay the age that they died at. My big brother died of leukemia when I was six. He was eight. Now when I think of him, he's always eight, and he's still my big brother. He never changes, and the part of me that remembers him never changes.

Ooo ahe-e, I aya oa a," she said in yawnspeak, a language - not unlike Hawaiian - known for its paucity of consonants.

If you think anyone is sane you just don’t know enough about them. The key — and this is very relevant in our case — is to find someone whose insanity dovetails with your own.

They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions.