“We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.”

“Mark Spitz didn't ask about Harry. You never asked about the characters that disappeared from a Last Night story. You knew the answer. The plague had a knack for narrative closure.”

“A society manufactures the heroes it requires.”

“New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.”

“Mark Spitz had met plenty of the divine-retribution folks over the months. This was their moment; they were umbrella salesmen standing outside a subway entrance in a downpour. The human race deserv...”

“Nowdays, Rosie the Rivetere was a former soccer mom who had just opened her own catering business when Last Night came down and her husband and kids were eaten by a parking attendant at the local m...”

“I'm generally a happy person -with the help of antidepressants, that is- so there is something to be said for surrounding myself with happy people.”

“Even if we accept the view that biochemical imbalances may contribute to depression and suicide, it is a mistake to assume that the biochemical aspect of the problem is entirely within the victim. ...”

“My sadness is beautiful. It infuses everything I do. It is at the core of my identity and always has been, just as happiness is in some people. I refuse to be told that it's a flaw. I will not mute...”

“Jesus Christ, it's like living with Stevie bloody Nicks,' I said, 'only without the cocaine, which would be more fun.”

“There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol."..."There was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality."..."But they used to take ...”

“Happiness is my drug of choice.”

“You'll be surprised how infinitely merciful they [these tablets] are. The prescription number is 96814. I think of it as the telephone number of God!”

“If you expand the boundaries of mental illness, which is clealry what has happened in this country during the past twenty-five years, and you treat the people so diagnosed with psychiatric medicati...”

“...all I could think about was how both sets of parents had needed to make their decision, on whether to medicate their child, in a scientific vacuum. (p. 35)”