Frigid Bitch: It's like a 12-step program for assholes.
Lunch Lines: A noontime sentence.
Joseph Campblog: Exploring the books of Joseph Campbell.

Styg was a year above Olive, which meant his life was peppered with brand new things like summer jobs, and painting his nails in defiance of his parents. But then there was that tendency of his to always hope for the best -- it always made Olive feel like she was the older of the two.

It was the last Thursday in June, and they were at last riding the train home from school and into another great big ripening summer.

"But I told them you were interested," said Styg, "or not INTERESTED, but, you know, at least not totally gloomy."

"No," she said. Her voice was flat and still, as usual; and as usual, Olive's fingers traced the outline of an egg-sized lump sewn into the hem of her pea coat.

Many of the folk hardely even knew or cared for them at all -- but only one person actually hated them, and that was Olivia Pitty, the Pitted Olive.

It's hard to imagine now, but in those seemingly-safe days, the people of the town were so accustomed to the creatures of the Warrens that they barely even noticed them at all.

This was all years ago, of course -- long before the Nomenclus had begun to die, and even longer before the Passage family returned to regrow the extinct creatures' numbers.

Technically, her name was Olivia Pitty, but everyone called her "Pitted Olive," and by the time she started to mind it, sometime in her twelfth year, it was too late to object. And besides, she knew, it was fitting.

I didn't think it was funny when you bought me a goat to replace my totaled car; and I especially don't think it's funny now that the goat has syphilis.

Glenn's stories were always endlessly fascinating, though after a time I started to doubt that he was ever really sommelier to the Raj.