I had a very funny and depressing talk with my seventy-four-year-old mother. I decided, she doesn’t have a bucket list – she has a kick-the-bucket list.

I’ll make birthday to you like turkey on wheat. Hold the mayonnaise—and hold me tightly. My love candle burns bright for you like a black hole.

My ashtray is full, the carton of cigarettes is empty, and I just cremated grandpa. But I never inhaled—or told him I loved him.

Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They . . . they talk!”Talk?’ He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. ‘We...

Today I tried to pick up something I was standing on. It didn’t work out well.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

I had a dream about you. You were Ginger Rogers, and you were trying to teach me to dance, even though my movements were as stiff as a mannequin. I think you tolerated my abysmal...

The parasail’s winch turned, winding up the line, pulling Ally and Serena lower and closer to him in a steady pull. A funny feeling seized him as he watched her. Logically, he knew she kept...

Even if times are tough and you’re enduring a terrible heartache, it’s important to focus your anger on a vibrator, not another person.

Nine is nine years too young to be a mother.

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved...

I used to jog but it’s bad for the knees. Too much beta carotene turns you orange, too much calcium gives you kidney stones. Health kills.

The clouds rolled over the hills like a pack of midgets wearing gray togas somersaulting in unison, and I thought it’s a glorious day to be alive and in love.

It’s the only way anything will change. Because we are both mother and child, cause and effect, villain and victim

For dessert I ate a desert. It was sandy, and so was the name of the woman I ate dinner with. She had a dry sense of humor, and that is why I wore a...

A fly with an elephant on its back would give the illusion of a flying elephant, if that fly were powered by my love for you.

How can you protect yourself by carrying a sword if you don’t know how to use it?’Not me, sir. Other people. They see the sword and don’t attack me,’ said Maladict patiently.Yes, but if they...

Does it help if we’re so strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome everything in our way no matter what?” asked Wang-mu.”I think those are the pertinent virtues, yes,” said Peter.”Then let’s do...

Boys say they don’t mind how you get your hair done. But then they leave you for someone with really great standard girl hair and the next thing you know you’re alone with a masculine...

If you chose my clone over me, you chose me over me. So I’d get chosen, and I’d get rejected.

Nobles with competent fathers perhaps. I spent my formative years at my aunt’s at Huffington Manor. She held a daily salon, where a dozen noble ladies came to discuss all manner of philosophical topics, like...

I am not who I pretend to be, even when I act like myself.

A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument…and the occasional bar fight.

The roar of the crowd began to grow. He heard them harmoniously stomping their feet in a rhythm that cried out for battle. Gabe glanced across the arena to several cages that were shielded by...

Um…Mercer? Haven’t seen you in nearly a month. I was expecting something like, ‘Oh Cross, love of my heart, fire of my loins, how I’ve longed–

I don’t use a crap camera, I don’t eat junk, and I’m not going to a dance where the boys are bores

I loved her like silence looks black when you try to touch it. I don’t remember her name or what she looked like or what her voice sounded like or anything she’s ever said or...

The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled,...

Just because I wear a size 14 shoe does not mean I’ll take it off when I go to shake your hand.

Making money for my clones, now that’s what I call self-enrichment. Having all my clones working for me, working for free, and enriching me, now that’s what I call social progress. Ah, but that’s life,...

Belief sloshes around in the firmament like lumps of clay spiralling into a potter’s wheel. That’s how gods get created, for example. They clearly must be created by their own believers, because a brief resume...

Erik Satie died on July 1, 1925; his last words were ‘Ah, the cows…

I’m the good kind of crazy, though.

Love should last a lifetime. But not the lifetime of a giant tortoise. More like the lifespan of a gastrotrich.

They don’t make morgues with windows. In fact, if the geography allows for it, they hardly ever make morgues above the ground. I guess it’s partly because it must be eisier to refrigerate a bunch...

You graduated 120 years ago? When I graduated I was just one of many in a large stack of love letters. Now get me out of this Time Fridge before I self-cannibalize! I walked a...

People who want to climb mountains just like taking metaphors for real. So when I say I could murder for a mangosteen, I hope you don’t think I’m going to go out and do that.

Making money is good, but there’s no pockets in a shroud.

The trick is not appearing to be so.

Q and Beanpole and I giggled at the way our math teacher, Mr. Sung-Li, wore four pencils in his shirt pocket in case he was suddenly attacked by a multiplication problem or something.

I went to school to be a comedian. I was always cracking jokes in class. And after they were cracked, the teacher would try to put them back together.

You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.

I tried to mug a wealthy man, but was unsuccessful because I was out of coffee cups. I wish I was less poor and more pour.

My zip code is my salary. Too bad I live in 32256 and not 90210. Also, I lied—but only because the zip code 00000 does not exist.

I Will Always Love You” was constantly on my FM Walkman radio around that time. I think that made me cry because I associated it with absolutely no one.

The bag is now clearly catless, and there’s a very foul odor coming from the fan.

Her sleep was enlivened by several dreams. One where Professor Wanstead’s bushy eyebrows fell off because they were not his own eyebrows, but false ones. As she woke again, her first impression was that which...

Through the miracle of science, or divine intervention, a brick could be made soft, like Jell-O, and a blanket could be made rigid, like the laws regarding the speed limit, as interpreted by the cop...

if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.

I invented an invisible machine to help you get to sleep. It only works after your eyes stay shut for a length of time. It’s also so quiet that you won’t hear it.