“Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.”

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”

“Every last minute of my life has been preordained and I'm sick and tired of it.How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: the Italian Renaissance penciled in for right after th...”

“Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine.”

“You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble.”

“A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?""Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.”

“The seeming legitimacy that existed in mind a second earlier vaporized before they could be carried out, leaving the air barren.”

“A night of crying has silenced me. This morning it seems the whole world is against me. I've never before felt so barren, so empty. I've never before thought the daylight to be ... my enemy. My enemy.”

“This book is written in a barren period of loss with an attempt to move forward towards substance.”

“Unless, of course, one chose to join the increasing numbers who had decided they were so deep in despair that there was nothing worse to fear in life. These were men who had finally, and so early, ...”

“Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I'd sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me. Apparently Jimmy knew...”

“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.”