The Korean man nodded, the way you do when you’re a foreigner and understand that someone has finished a sentence. - David Sedaris

After the trial, I watched as another female pathologist collected maggots from a spinal column found in the desert. There was a decomposed head, too, and before leaving work she planned to simmer it and study the exposed cranium for contusions. I was asked to pass this information along to the chief medical examiner, and, looking back, I perhaps should have chosen my words more carefully. 'Fire up the kettle,' I told him. 'Ol'-fashioned skull boil at five p.m.

Our artwork did not hang on the refrigerator or anywhere near it, because our parents recognised it for what it was: crap.

If I'd been burned alive because of bad grades, my parents would have killed me, especially my father, who meant well but was just a little too gung ho for my taste.