The boy detective thinks, The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. He reasons, But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.

Sex scenes in books are always like first person, from this male perspective and just about how awesome he is. It feels like such a fantasy.

Funny as hell, searingly honest, and urgently real, Sam Pink's Rontel puts to shame most modern fiction. His writing perfectly captures the bizarre parade that is Chicago, with all its gloriously odd and wonderful people. This book possesses both the nerve of Nelson Algren and the existential comedy of Albert Camus.

An act of evil is the death of wonder

Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.

The longer human beings exist, it seems, the less likely we are to choose to be brave.

It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy.