"Your imagination! You think every girl's a dope. You think a girl goes to a party and there's some guy in a fancy striped vest strutting around giving you that I'm-so-handsome-you-can't-resist-me look. From this she's supposed to fall flat on her face. Well, she doesn't fall on her face. But there's another guy in the room, over in the corner. Maybe he's nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First, you look past him. But then you sense that he's gentle and kind and worried. That he'll be tender with you, nice and sweet. That's what's really exciting."

"Oh, do you feel the breeze from the subway. Isn't it delicious?"

"So he lured me down to his apartment. He made me sit on his piano bench. Then he made me play Chopsticks. Then suddenly he turned at me. His eyes bulging. He was frothing at the mouth. Just like The Creature from the Black Lagoon."

"[in Richard's fantasy] It shakes me! It quakes me! It makes me feel goose-pimply all over!"

"When it's hot like this, you know what I do? I put my undies in the Ice Box!"

"Michele Lee - Vivian Feffer"

"Jsu Garcia - Javier"

"Bryan Brown - Leland Van Lew"

"Hank Azaria - Claude"

"Alec Baldwin - Stan Indursky"

"Debra Messing - Lisa Kramer"

"Philip Seymour Hoffman - Sandy Lyle"

"Jennifer Aniston - Polly Prince"

"Ben Stiller - Reuben Feffer"

"Bob Dishy - Irving Feffer"

"Birdie Conrad - Jean Stapleton"

"Patricia Eden - Parker Posey"

"Frank Navasky - Greg Kinnear"

"Gillian Quinn - Cara Seymour"

"Matthew Fox - Jeffrey Scaperrotta"

"Annabel Fox - Hallee Hirsh"

"Veronica Grant - Deborah Rush"

"Schuyler Fox - John Randolph"

"Nelson Fox - Dabney Coleman"

"Kevin Jackson - Dave Chappelle"

"Christina Plutzker - Heather Burns"

"George Pappas - Steve Zahn"

"Kathleen Kelly - Meg Ryan"

"Joe Fox - Tom Hanks"

"[to Christina and Kathleen Kelly] Should I get sausage for the meat sauce or chopped meat..? No, you know what, I'm gonna get clam sauce, 'cuz this is a big date."

"[to Christina and Kathleen Kelly] This place is a tomb. I'm going to the nutshop where it's fun."

"[to Christina and Kathleen Kelly] As far as I'm concerned, the Internet is just another way to be rejected by a woman."

"[to Frank Navasky, at dinner party] You know, what's always fascinated me about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is how old they looked when they were really just our age."

"[to Joe Fox] I'm late. Random House fired Dick Atkins. Good riddance. Murray Chilton died. Which makes one less person I'm not speaking to -- (she drains a cup of espresso as a second starts to come out of the machine) Vince got a great review. He'll be insufferable. Tonight, PEN dinner…"

"[to Sidney-Ann Strongin on television] Thank your."

"[to Sidney-Ann Strongin on television] Technologically speaking, the world's out of hand. Take the VCR. The whole idea of a VCR is that it makes it possible for you to tape what's on television while you're out of the house. But the whole point of being out of the house is so you can miss what's on television. Radio. Now there's a medium I can get behind."

"[to Kathleen Kelly, typing]You are a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly, in the corrupt sands of commerce."

"[to Kathleen Kelly]The Olympia Report deluxe Electric. Report…as in gunshot."

"[to Kathleen Kelly] Listen to this -- the entire workforce of the state of Virginia had to have solitaire removed from their computers -- because they hadn't done any work in six weeks.… You know what this is, you know what we're seeing here? We're seeing the end of Western civilization as we know it."

"[to Joe Fox] I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."

"[to Christina] It will be really easy to stop seeing him, because .... I'm not."

"[to Joe Fox (NY152) in email] Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today I saw one. I couldn't believe it. It got on at 42nd -- and got off at 59th, where I assume it was going to Bloomingdale's to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake. As almost all hats are."

"[to Joe Fox (NY152) in email] Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void."

"[to Joe Fox (NY152) in email] The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings."

"[to Joe Fox] 'Joe. Just call me Joe.' As if you were one of those stupid 22-year-old girls with no last name. 'Hi, I'm Kimberley.' 'Hi, I'm Janice.' Don't they know you're supposed to have a last name? It's like they're an entire generation of cocktail waitresses."

"[to Joe Fox] You were spying on me, weren't you? You probably rented those children."

"[to Joe Fox, after first meeting him in "The Shop Around the Corner"] I started helping my mother after school here when I was six years old. And I used to watch her. And it wasn't that she was just selling books, it was that she was helping people become whoever it was (that) they were going to turn out to be. Because when you read a book as a child it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does..."

"[to Kathleen Kelly at bookstore] '(Balloons get caught in the door)' Good thing it wasn't the fish!"

"[to Kathleen Kelly at bookstore, describing his 4-year-old half-brother Matthew and 11-year-old aunt Annabel] Matt is my father's son. Annabel is my grandfather's daughter. We are -- an American family."

"[to Kathleen Kelly (Shopgirl) in email] The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino!"