“The room fell silent. I frankly didn't know what I was going to do to help Eduardo, but I had the sense that he was right- no one else could help him, and without help, all that he'd done would cru...”

“Sam took another sip of the pruno. It went down smoother this time, possibly because he no longer had feeling in his extremities.”

“What's your name, son?' Sam said. The man looked to be about Sam's age, but Sam always thought calling people 'son' immediately gave the air of imperial authority and opened the door for spanking i...”

“Because we all need to believe in movies, sometimes.”

“You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. ...”

“I think this is why Ellis took so many moving pictures of us. Because he knew that people come in and out of your life, and a picture fixes them in the moment they reach out to you.”

“We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.”

“Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion”

“All others are outside myself;I lock my door and bar them outThe turmoil, tedium, gad-about.I lock my door upon myself,And bar them out; but who shall wallSelf from myself, most loathed of all?If I...”