We are not attracted to people because they are virtuous. In fact, there's something a little creepy about people who are too good. There is a big draw to people who are successful at breaking the rules. That means we end up admiring a lot of people that we think we shouldn't.

Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Everything people do that doesn’t work has to be somebody else’s fault. Next time you know, geezers’ll be suing the government for getting old and kids’ll be taking their mommies to court because they came out ugly.

Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment.

Now that children don't till your fields or take you in when you're incontinent, there is no sensible reason to have them, and it's amazing that with the advent of effective contraception anyone chooses to reproduce at all.

Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.