“That's a tarantula,' he said. 'You got to watch out for them suckers. They can jump four feet. If they get you, you go crazy. It's a special kind of poison'This I didn't believe. I never could figure out why men thought they could impress a woman by making the world out to be such a big dangerous deal. I mean, we've got to live in the exact same world every damn day of the week, don't we?”

“I was in the shopping mall because that's where I go lately. For the last couple of weeks, I've been going there every day, trying to figure out why people go there. It's kind of a personal project.”

“I see you are looking at my feet," he said to her when car was in motion."I beg your pardon?" said the woman."I said I see you're looking at my feet"."I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car."If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it.""Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back."I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man.”

“No, when I was a kid I had big plans.” A hint of playfulness crept into Jesse’s eyes. “I was going to be the next Superman. But my sisters got sick of me stealing their tights and I could never figure the damn things out anyway.”

“Because you know that's all I needs, all I wants, is for you to try to run, to turn your back on me and run. I know you aint going to. Because all you got to beat is me. I got to beat old Carothers. Get your pistol.""No," the other said. "Go home. Get out of here. Tonight I will come to your house-----""After this?" Lucas said. "Me and you, in the same country, breathing the same air even? No matter what you could say, what you could even prove so I would have to believe it, after this? Get your pistol.”

“We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.”