While he bore no real resemblance to anyone in my family, his features were a collection of my mother's and father's best attributes, with a few of Gregory Peck's thrown in.

I liked finding dirt on people. It made all my trespasses seem trivial.

....You should keep dental floss on you at all times; when your eyesight goes, quit driving; don't keep too many secrets, eventually they'll eat away at you. But the most valuable lesson he taught me was this: Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution. We are all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us. And this is what I figured out on my own: Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you'd think. Nobody really grows up.

You're a terrible cook, Daniel." "I know," he replied, "But it's the effort that counts." "I hope that's not the slogan for your dental practice.

Milo refreshed Rae's drink and said, Talk to her. You need to get it off your chest." Then Milo turned to me and said, "Why don't you try a more subtle approach." "I demand you tell me your troubles," I said to my sister. "You're not as funny as you think you are," Rae replied.

His sense of humor is purely cheap vaudeville, yet everyone falls for it.

If people really grew up, there would be no crime, no divorce, no Civil War reenactors....it's not like you think it will be, that one day you'll wake up and realize that you've got things figured out. You never figure it out. Ever." - Isabel Spellman attempting to explain growing up to her sister Rae