I had to tell her all about my illness, and in return I had to endure a very long and circumstantial account of her rheumatism and her asthmatical ailments, which fortunately was interrupted by the noisy arrival of the children from the kitchen, where they had paid a visit to old Stine, a fixture in the house.

Donald Duk never liked his name. He hates his name. He is not a duck. He is not a cartoon character. - - - Only the Chinese are stupid enough to give a kid a stupid name like Donald Duk, Donald Duk says to himself.

His real name was Leonard, Len. He'd changed it when he came East. Len, he said. A turd of a name. Who wants it? I mean a name that ends in a nasalization, for Christ's sake. Leo now. It's like Anna. They go on forever. You can live with a name like that.

[…] he sought to charm a single pair of ears, and those more hairy than critical. Later, as the race went on humaning, there grew complexity of sentiment and varying emotional needs, […]