What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?" I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ. "Sonovabitch." "To his face?" she asked. "I never see his face." "He wears a mask?" "In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.

Her handwriting was curious — small sharp little letters with no capitals (who did she think she was, e. e. cummings?).

But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked. “Make me”, I replied. “Beg pardon?” “Make me”, I repeated. Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked. “Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own.” “Like what, Oliver?” she asked, “like just what is it he makes you do?” “The ‘right things’”, I said. “What’s wrong with the ‘right things’?” she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.

What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me.

Jenny, if you're so con­vinced I'm a loser, why did you bull­doze me into buy­ing you cof­fee?' She looked me straight in the eye and smiled. 'I like your body,' she said.

Part of being a big winner is the ability to be a big loser. There is no paradox involved. It is a distinctly Harvard thing to be able to turn any defeat into victory

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?