Quotes from Matthew Norman

Cocky, fake, slimy, inelegant, ineloquent, charmless, witless, weird, sinister, glacially cold and luminescently remote, he may be the most chillingly repulsive politician of even this golden generation. If Pixar set out to create a CGI character to embody everything the public has learned to despise about its political class, they'd be thrilled to come up with this lizardy schemer {Ed Balls], who may have slipped through a tear in the fabric of space-time himself.

It's like the television equivalent of one of those cymbal-banging monkey toys being duct-taped to your forehead.

They're all about forty, I'd guess, but they could pass for thirty in that way that handsome gay men can seemingly defy the basic rules of nature.

I was modeling sunglasses for a while, but that got kinda shady. No

That's what her kind of politics is all about, right? The past is this sacred, glorified thing? Even though it never really existed in the first place." I

Maybe that's just what moving on is, not getting over, but skipping over.

It's probably unhealthy to miss a life that never actually existed—to

caffeine-infused tsunami of words.

I know nothing," I say, cheerfully. "You never seem to. Have you ever wondered why that is?" "It's very deliberate. I've found that knowledge is usually a burden. I prefer to be surprised and then eventually horrified.

Generally speaking, it's difficult not to be at least mildly terrified of a girl who might, at any moment, take her shirt off. But

I suspect scotch is something you have to convince yourself to enjoy, like sushi or the last few Radiohead albums, but I can't deny the result is nice.

Marriage isn't about agreeing. It's about staying. That's

He considered rolling over and simply ignoring his son. There should be a rule in parenting that you get to do that once every fiscal year. If you skip a year, it carries over— like airline miles or paid time off.

There's a Cubs game on WGN. They're out in San Diego, and they're winning. For the first time in a long, long time, the Cubs aren't terrible, and my grandpa isn't going to get to see how it all plays out. Nancy touches my arm.

I've given it some thought, and, seriously, there's just no way Facebook can be good for you.

Catholicism has had some branding issues these last few decades

After the age of about . . . what, sixteen? We're all damaged. Every single beautiful, stupid, precious one of us. Damaged, damaged, damaged." When

I want to touch her, but I can't, because I'm angry at her and she's angry with me, and even though I love her, I don't like her as much as I should.

There's an entire genre of writing now that's empowered women to type out their sex fantasies and publish them on the Internet.

It's barely after 11:00 p.m., early by New York standards, so the street is busy.

I pick up a Prince bobblehead doll. It's wearing a little purple suit. On

Significant things shouldn't begin or end at Applebee's.

There are two types of guys in this world," she says. "Guys who know that 'So It Goes' is a Kurt Vonnegut reference, and guys who I want absolutely nothing to do with.

Marriage isn't about agreeing. It's about staying.