“What was a foreigner, anyway? Is the place you're born the only place you really belong? At what point do you stop being from "away" and start being from "here"?”

“Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it.”

“You can't choose where you belong, and where you don't. But what if the place you don't belong is the only place you have left?”

“There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren't you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal guy like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn't really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be where you get to the other place.”

“Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you have to start believing you know what's best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.”

“ I want to hold my breath for as long as it takes.I want to stop breathing just long enough to know what it would be like to be totally sitll. Like being a cough away from death.Not really there- not really here.”