If you take my stuff apart, you'll find my choruses of repetitions are picked up almost verbatim from Kurt Vonnegut, and my distanced fracture quality is all from Amy Hempel, who's probably my favourite writer.

Not everything is about money. You didn't even say, hello. You are not your sad little wallet.

You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don't win with a lot of treble.

And it [Fight Club novel] was written so general that my father thought I was writing about his father, and my boss thought I was writing about his boss. People really put themselves, you know, in the shoes of the narrator.

Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.

In good old Colonial Dunsboro, masochism is a valuable job skill. It is in most jobs.

How folks lay claim to a loved one is they give you a name of their own. They figure to label you as their property.