“The Morning After Coffee Bar was different from the mass-produced coffee bars that had mushroomed on every street almost everywhere, a development which presaged the flattening effects of globalisation; the spreading, under a cheerful banner, of a sameness that threatened to weaken and destroy all sense of place.”

“Every morning, after a few sips of coffee and a bit of small talk, each of us retreats with our books, and travels centuries away from this place.”

“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.”

“I’ll bet Ryan Lilly drinks coffee like a flower—a lily. I drink coffee more like two roses and a nose walk into a bar. I would tell you what the bartender said, but to be honest, the bar was pretty noisy and I didn’t hear what he said.”

“Of course many bars in Manhasset, like bars everywhere, were nasty places, full of pickled people marinating in regret.”

“I had a real revelation. We were all in robes, and they made some Turkish coffee for us. The professor explained how the coffee was made very different from anywhere else, and I realized, 'So fucking what?' Which kids even in Turkey give a shit about Turkish coffee? All day I had looked at young people in Istanbul. They were all drinking what every other kind in the world drinks, and they were wearing clothes that look like they were bought at the Gap, and they are all using cell phones. They were like kids everywhere else. It hit me that, for young people, this whole world is the same now. When we're making products, there is no such thing as a Turkish phone, or a music player that young people in Turkey would want that's different from one young people elsewhere would want. We're just one world now.”