"Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her."
An Overture to the Commencement of a Very Rigid Journey, pg. 1

"Grandfather's name is also Alexander. Supplementally is Father's. We are all primogenitory children in our families, which brings us tremendous honor, on the scale of the sport of baseball, which was invented in Ukraine."
An Overture to the Commencement of a Very Rigid Journey, pg. 5

"In the middle of the string and feathers, surrounded by candles and soaked matches, prawns, pawns, and silk tassels that curtsied like jellyfish, was a baby girl, still mucus-glazed, still pink as the inside of a plum." The Beginning of the World Often Comes, pg. 13

"The Well-Regarded Rabbi was exceedingly knowledgeable about the large, extra-large, and extra-extra-large matters of the Jewish faith, and was able to draw upon the most obscure and indecipherable texts to reason seemingly impossible religious quandaries, but he...