Amanda Boyden

“Heroin makes you sick the first try. Cigarette smoking too if you're lucky. But if you're not lucky, and you develop a taste, if you're one who senses that cocaine gets better with time, or you're one who jumps out of a plane and becomes an adrenaline junky, or you're one who loves the feel of grease melting over your tongue in the form of pecan pie or thick clam chowder or a fat porterhouse or just plain ol' Doritos by the bagful, and you want to repeat the same comfort and recognizable surprise of that first go, that first indulgence, and yet with each succeeding bite the small hope of true satisfaction slides farther away, then you understand Celeste, at least a little.”

“Everybody wants more, and everybody should, what . . . should strive for being the best human being she can be. Or he can be. That people make mistakes is part of the sad side of living, along with dying and maiming and all the rest.”

“Nothing that comes through synthesizrs can fix you, or give you your fix. Nothing here.”

“We'd run out of coke but not out of time.”

“You want to fuck the singer, but you would suck on any of them. A rim job, a piss shower, wouldn't matter. The band plays in nothing but tube socks hung over their cocks and sacks. They can make the socks swing like giant tittie tassels. You've never seen anything so sexy.”

“You hate this.You need more something.”

“Not a hope, a prayer; a fuckin' song.”

“Let the two cross-tops and junk gin and four no-filter Camels make your heart pound.”

“Life is richness in many forms. We should all find our own.”

“Remember, this is important: Never trust that you will be saved by anyone.”

“Think that it was meant for your head, or maybe hers, and as you think this, look at wht it got instead.”

“So what. I'd make up whatever I lacked in other ways. Quickly. Fast, fast. Gimme my cake. It was time to fuck.”

“Decide then as you set your jaw and clench your teeth that you will get rid of your boy. Promise yourself this. You will get rid of your boy as soon as the cocaine and money run out. Promise yourself. Try to remember the word. Promise. Swear.”

“You even consider the idea of leving with a thing posessed. You could do it. You have to do something. You have to do someone.”

“Dig in the pope's pocket for the bullet, the brown glass vial with the magic top. Snort. Taste chemicals running down the back of your throat. Snort again.”

“See a storm. See a bad spanking. See your boy is ugly. Decide your boy is the pope. Blow the pope away with an imaginary gun. Fellate your own fingers afterward.”

“You want enough to fill you up. You want more cocaine and more vodka. You want more of all of them, of men, of the things that stick out of them, egos and Marlboro reds and dirty words about banging your perfect ass.”

“Know the mistake of your dcision before your first step.”