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1 " It's hard to fuck your girlfriend when she's fucked up and you're not. It's harder than the skee-ball they used to have at the Plaza arcade, all that agony over a fuzzy piece. "
― Sam Lipsyte , Venus Drive
2 " You think everyone will stay behind and do everything you did all over again, forever. You picture old geezers in jean jackets doing whip-its behind the plaza. "
3 " It was early, late, lockjaw hour. "
4 " I looked for Gary in all of the Gary places, but I was too early. These places were all haunted by the future of Gary. "
5 " I wanted to have friends from all over the world in the way of a man who has no friends. "
6 " The Brit's eyes had this pucker of awful witness. "
7 " His eyes had the ebb of his liver in them and he bore the air of a man who looks right at you and only sees the last of himself. "
8 " Van Wort was fat and his name was Van Wort. With that combination, why would you pack your kid off to camp? Let him play with ladybugs in the safety of his own lawn. "
9 " We are both from the same kind of towns. We both know the sound of swivel-head spray at midnight on a summer lawn. We both know the weak secrets of us. "
10 " Now Rich walks in, a silver pin stuck in his lapel, his hair slicked back in the style of men who seem to be saying, Hey, go blow, my hair is slicked back, and on weekends I know joy. "
11 " ...I was just trying to do what any decent historian would try to do, too, namely to describe all the sick shit that went down, which Ms. Fredericks says must be done so we learn from our mistakes and so history doesn't keep happening again and again. But I have my doubts about that theory. Because like remembering or not remembering your last beat-down has shit to do with the next one coming at your ass. And what help is a skinny black line with dots on it besides just to say this sucked, and that sucked, and do not doubt it all will suck again? "
12 " The first time someone at the office asked me about my skill-set, I thought it was some kind of mail-order frying pan. Everyone seems to have one but me. The people I work with are human résumés. They are fluent in every computer language, boast degrees in marketing and medieval song. They snowboard on everything but snow. They study esoteric forms of South American combat and go on all-deer diets. Sometimes I’m not even sure what they are up to, but I know I will read about it in one of our city’s vibrant lifestyle journals. It’s easy to detest these people, but they have such energy, such will. "
13 " I used to think I had integrity but I came to realize it was just sloth. "
