Bud’s relationship with the female sex was governed by a gallimaufry of primal impulses, dim suppositions, deranged theories, overheard scraps of conversation, half-remembered pieces of bad advice, and fragments of no-doubt exaggerated anecdotes that amounted to rank superstition.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist

The Diamond Age, “Part the First,” “A thete visits a mod parlor” (1995)