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[...] I'll be murdered if he knows I told. I'll end up in a thousand jars of the whipped lamb, while the little Foamwhistles ironically starve.
Foamwhistle telling Lenore about Corfu
[...] she studied classics and philosophy and who knows what else under a mad crackpot genius named Wittgenstein, who believed that everything was words. Really. If your car would not start, it was apparently to be understood as a language problem. If you were unable to love, you were lost in language. Being constipated equalled being clogged with linguistic sediment. To me the whole thing smacks strongly of bullshit [...] Words and a book and a belief that the world is words and Lenore's conviction that her own intimate personal world is only of, neither by nor for, her. Something is not right. She is in pain. I would like the old lady to die in her sleep.
Rick on Lenore Sr.
[...] he would urinate up onto my hanging necktie, a pale, sweetly thin jet, and there would be smells of powder, and my tie would be heavy at my throat, and would drip, and we would laugh together, toothless he and sad, sleepy I, at my urine-soaked tie.
I just really like the "sad, sleepy I" part
[...] through the miracle of television, Vance Vigorous enjoyed a special relationship with Richard Nixon. As Watergate wore on in brilliant color, Vance took to furtive looks, pinched whiteness around the bridge of his nose, refusals to explain his whereabouts or give reasons for what he did. My tape recorder--admittedly tapeless and not even plugged in but nevertheless my tape recorder--began to appear places: under the dining room table at dinner, in the back seat of the car, under our bed, in the drawer of the mal table. Vance would, when confronted, look blankly at the tape recorder and at us. Then he would pretend to look at his watch. [...]
"Nobody's that hungry. And did he just try to bite the waiter? Was that an attempted bite?"
"Must be the light in here."
on Norman. I love this
"Daughter. Interesting. Stonecipheco Baby Foods. Not a bad line of products, really. A bit soft and runny for my taste, of course. ..."
"Well, it's infant food, really, Norman."
"... but any port in the proverbial storm. Please feel free to sit down."
"Yes and also not only that each of our universes has this feature [...]"
Norman speaking. just noting the stylistic tic
"Lenore, please. Norman, friend, really. A universe-view is one thing. No one can grow to infinite size."
"Has anyone ever tried?"
"Not to my knowledge, no, but ..."
"Then do me a kindness not to shrilly monger finite failure until I've tried. No one had ever been able to give butter life, either, but ..."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. To be ignored. A slip of the tongue."
". . . ."
"Yes and tonight Project Total Yang beings. I am going to grow and grow and grow. There will of course eventually cease to be room for anyone else in the universe at all, which I'm afraid will also mean the two of you, for which I apologize, but say also tough titty."
"Ms. Beadsman, I am coming to like you, unless it's simply the inevitably favorable comparison of anyone with Vigorous here. Have you ever had intercourse with someone soon to be of infinite size?"
gold
"Making me come. Me as a person," said Vlad the Impaler. "Where is that ditzy bitch?"
"Sorry about that."
Candy and Lenore