“The American School of Paris is one of those strange places in foreign cities where expatriates huddle together in a defensive circle and try to pretend they're still back at home.I saw it as a place for lost souls.”

“You're just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they're already in us. That's why we pretend them in the first place.”

“We aren't in high school. We aren't really in our families and we aren't in our houses. Those are the places we grew up and the times we spent together, but they aren't us. If we think they are, then we're lost, because times end and places are lost. We aren't any place or any time . . . We are everywhere.”

“The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.”

“Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.”

“No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.”