Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.

It's the Marilyn Monroe school of medicine where enough of any drug will cure any disease.

This is passive-aggression in action.

I am nothing, and not even that.

The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says.

If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?

These stories are ghosts, bringing people back from the dead. Just for a moment. For a visit. Every story is a ghost.