“Is your friend as pretty as you are? he asks. She’s a white girl, she answers. He tells her all white women look the same.”

“Ira wonders for an insane moment if he is seeing art … but then remembers he is trapped in a whale and will die alone.”

“Had he not grieved so deeply, he never would have grown into the comedian he did”

“By 1978, our marriage was so open it no longer included me.”

“All my husband’s happiness lives in the past. And this, the afterlife?”