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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”