"We are all children until our fathers die."
— Melissa Bank (The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing)

"It scares me. But then I get this big feeling, simple but exalted: He's like me, just with different details."
— Melissa Bank (The Wonder Spot)

"If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary."
— David Sedaris (Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays)

"Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it."
— David Sedaris

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. "
— Augusten Burroughs (Magical Thinking: True Stories)

"Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people."
— Augusten Burroughs (Dry: A Memoir)

"She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else."
— Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
— Albert Camus

""Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.""
— Tim O'Brien

"Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry."
— Gabriel García Márquez

"The world must be all fucked up," he said then, "when men travel first class and literature goes as freight."
— Gabriel García Márquez