Good girl, Rachel. Now, let’s get the hell out of here. Your mother has a headache that won’t quit until you’re twenty-one - David Sedaris

My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species. 'I think it was very nice of Paul to give me this vase,' she once said, arranging a bouquet of wildflowers into the skull-shaped bong my brother had left on the kitchen table. 'It's nontraditional, but that's the Rooster's way. He's a free spirit, and we're lucky to have him.

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

"You have how many children in your family?" the teacher would ask. "I'm guessing you must be Catholic, am I right?"