Context-free quotes

Esquire has this regular feature in its letters to the editor section that it calls "Context-Free Highlights from Letters We're Not Running."

Two examples:

"For the most part, life is a steady parade of unfortunate instances punctuated with bouts of fear, malcontent, and depression that can only be reliably recounted by someone who's been there and has the ability to gut-wrenchingly sing of it in a beautiful manner."

""I am a Tulsa street model. How do I become a regular model?"

It never fails to make me laugh. Somehow, I was reminded of these pearls as I was reading a chapter in the Richard Price crime novel, "Lush Life." Price is considered a master of "street" dialogue and I can see why. He's got a gift for combining authenticity, cadence and humor.

For instance, in this scene where two NYPD detectives, Matty and Yolanda, are interviewing Eric, a witness to a homicide:

Matty: "What was he reading?
Eric: I guess it was poetry because it had that pronouncement thing, you know, where you say each word like you're angry at it?"

And again...

Matty asks about the guy who was reading poetry.
Eric: "I mean that ******* was already half-wasted at the reading. And who the hell orders mojitos at a Chinese restaurant?"

And yet again...
Yolanda: "So then where'd you go after that?"
Eric: "... he took us to some poetry bar on the Bowery, beatnik bar, or something."
"What's it called?"
"Zeno's Conscience."
"They can get that all on the sign?"
"He said they had a midnight puppet porno show we couldn't miss."
"A what?" Yolanda smiled.

Free of context, these quotes may strike you as funny or not. For me, I considered them little gifts from the writer.