“Paulie smiled slightly at this, as profanity had always felt to him like a seal of understanding, a shortcut to extreme feeling that people used when they needed it most.”

“I had lived my life before in accordance with the poverty and itinerancy of my childhood, sliding in and out of other people’s leases, never expecting to stay very long and tolerating circumstances that strike me now as completely absurd.”

“Paulie smiled slightly at this, as profanity had always felt to him like a seal of understanding, a shortcut to extreme feeling that people used when they needed it most.”