“It's a wonder Hell don't open up and swallow her as the highlight of the service.”

“I want you to learn that if you don't keep picking at old wounds, over time they will eventually heal. Oh sure, sometimes they will leave a nasty, jagged scar, but at least it won't hurt like it di...”

“Anyway," continued Mr. Miller, "when I was a kid, people used to sit under the stars at night and look up into the sky and talk about things. They got to know each other. People Today is too busy s...”

“You'll never avoid every mistake. All you can do is try to do your best and live with the consequences.”

“As a very young person, I was ready and willing to explore and try new things, unhampered by the daily routines that adults so often feel obligated to adhere to.”

“That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I think I would have more fun chopping thistles with a butter knife.”

“Ya got cigarettes? she asks. Yes, I say,I got cigarettes. Matches? she asks.Enough to burn Rome. Whiskey?Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River of pain. You drunk? Not yet.”

“For one more time, he decided to give away smoking.And then, she happened one more time in his head.”

“Interesting" people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother.”

“I was happy, but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about i...”

“Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be r...”

“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are goin...”

“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.”