Less (Arthur Less, #1)

by Andrew Sean Greer

How can so many things become a bore by middle age—philosophy, radicalism, and other fast foods—but heartbreak keeps its sting?

But once you’ve actually been in love, you can’t live with “will do”; it’s worse than living with yourself.

beer that tasted like aspirin and smelled like magnolias and cost more than a hamburger.

“You should waste it.” “What’s that?” “You should be at the beach, like today. You should get stoned and drunk and have loads of sex.” She takes another drag off her cigarette. “I think the saddest thing in the world is a twenty-five-year-old talking about the stock market. Or taxes. Or real estate, goddamn it! That’s all you’ll talk about when you’re forty. Real estate! Any twenty-five-year-old who says the word refinance should be taken out and shot. Talk about love and music and poetry. Things everyone forgets they ever thought were important. Waste every day, that’s what I say.”