- Julia Salinger: What I want to know is why am I like this walking target for drunken jerks and losers? I mean that guy could have grabbed you, but he didn't and you know why? Because you exude "don't mess with me".
- Perry Marks: Give me a break.
- Julia Salinger: No, you do. You're so self-sufficient... even in your work. I, on the other hand, have a sign on my back that says "come torture me and make my life miserable".
- Perry Marks: Don't be so insulting. I am tortured too.
- Julia Salinger: Are not. You are like this together confident literary monolith.
- Perry Marks: I am plenty tortured. The reason I don't seem tortured it is because I have no life outside of this "convent". I'm like a literary nun. I work, work, work, so I don't have to contend with the physiological reality of not being laid in a year. So, I don't have to deal with the issues of love, rejection, rebound... except when it comes to my own work being published.