The loneliness of another can be shocking when it lays itself bare without warning.

Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?” “Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.

I sort of play golf because a lot of my friends are into it, but I'm awful - my handicap is about six or seven thousand.

Charm was the luxury of those who still believed in the essential rightness of things. In purity and picket fences.

L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning.

Choice, I've always believed, is all that separates us from animals.

The world according to Bubba is simple - if it aggravates you, stop it. By whatever means necessary.