“How much longer am I going to do this? I don’t know. I *love* it, you see.” – Anthony Bourdain, ‘Kitchen Confidential’

“After sawing myself in half / half of me moves to the woods // and buries itself / in a heap of leaves.” – Zachary Schomburg, “The Sawing In Half”

“Mental aptitude tests cannot measure genius except in certain narrow ranges, and the genius of the body…eludes comprehension.” – Joyce Carol Oates, ‘On Boxing’

“I was out-of-doors, eating snowballs / for dinner & sleeping by Lake Michigan.” – Adrian Matejka, “Blues His Sweetie Gives To Me”

“What was ‘walking on water,’ if it wasn’t Bible talk for surfing?” – Thomas Pynchon, ‘Inherent Vice’

“So we tremble. / Do we tremble? // We tremble.” – Mathias Svalina, “The Wine-Dark Sea”

“If one side is vengeance / than the other side must be / to forgive, to be // excellent to one another.” – Chloe N. Clark, “John Wick Meets Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan”

“I need to borrow this.” Miguel, to the portrait in the tomb of Oscar de la Cruz, ‘Coco’

“He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn’t owe too much money.” – Raymond Chandler, ‘The Big Sleep’

“I went back to the office and sat in my swivel chair and tried to catch up on my foot-dangling.” – Raymond Chandler, ‘The Big Sleep’