“She liked reality shows the best, and then the shows that purported to be about reality.”

“I'm a citizen of the republic of empathy.”

“We are going to eat ice cream and we are going to eat shit. The trick is to use different spoons.”

“They weren’t like dolls, because dolls had no feelings. Kids had feelings, just not any remotely related to yours.”

“She liked reality shows the best, and then the shows that purported to be about reality.”

“Yes,” said Cooley. “That is the question, as the Bard might say.” “The Bard?” “What’s so funny?” said Cooley. “Nothing, sir,” I said. “I just didn’t know people still used that term.” “Well, I’m a people, Burke. Am I not?” “Of course.” “If you prick me, do I not bleed, you scat-gobbling, mother-rimming prick?” Occasionally Dean Cooley reverted to a vocabulary more suited to his marine years, but some maintained it was only when he felt threatened, or stretched for time. “Yes, sir,” I said.”

“We’d been walking in endless rectangles and now we were near the candy store again. The lights were out, the security gate down. We leaned up against the wall of a bank and I could feel the cool stone on my back, the billions of dollars thrumming through wires beneath and behind me, or on the night waves above. I wasn’t quite sure how they traveled. Or how much they got out anymore.”

“They sought each other, missed each other, at cocktail parties, in train terminals, at flower shops, their fin de siecle Nokias gaining symbolic power with each scene.”

“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.”

“Why do you think posers pose? Because they want to be invited to the dominion of the real. And they know their very desire for it disqualifies them.”

“How much I'd always envied the tight life of voles. The hidey hole was happiness.”