“Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I...”

“Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.”

“Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.”

“Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.”

“If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.”

“Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an undeniable fact: Leos are born between July 23 and August 22, fitted queen-size sheets measure sixty...”

“Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.”

“Mistakes? That's why they put erasers on pencils.”

“The features of character are carved out of adversity.”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

“If you have ever felt slightly nauseous walking through an aged care facility, puckered your face against a smell, observed a grown woman clutching a dolly with desperation, felt a flood of melanch...”

“Harold lies in the darkened room with curtains drawn. It is one thirty in the afternoon and his lunch tray seems to almost sigh at the untouched food. His words are soft and not many. He listens, l...”

“Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. ...”