After two years of sending out query letters and failing to get an agent, I made friends with an author, who was nice enough to introduce me to his agent. That got my foot in the door.

My bad luck got tangled up with my bad decisions, and I'm paying for it.

A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection

I don't speak fluent bumpkin.

I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.

Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

We need time to relax and enjoy ourselves too, no matter how dark the story. The occasional humorous moment helps with that. That's one of the things that Joss Whedon excels at in his storytelling.