“[There] was a time when a lot of people came to the door. The milkman. The iceman. The Fuller Brush man. Encyclopedia salesmen. There was a sense of interaction with the world that started right at your own front doorstep.”

“Funny how a thing like that can be so damned important, but you don't know it's important until an instant later in the big scheme of time. Then you go back and try to retrieve it. You tell yourself it's in there somewhere. But it's really in that no-man's-land of the moment before you woke up and started paying attention to your own life.”

“If you want to see a man come to his senses, try something like, Do you happen to carry a rubber in your wallet? Did I mention I'm not on the pill?”

“I try to think of a way to get there without going past it. There are lots of ways, but they all have me walking a little farther. And that's stupid, I decide. What am I, a little kid? I can stand to see something it hurts to want. I can see it and then just keep walking. It happens to lots of people everyday. We all survive.”

“So, I guess people figure it's not as hard to lose your mother when you never got along anyway. But they're wrong. They're dead wrong. It's always hard to lose your mother. Always. If you loved her, if you hated her. If she smothered you, if she ignored you. It doesn't matter. She's your mother. Your mother. That's just a very tough bond to break.”

“... even though it was beautiful and comfortable, and even though it was the world, it was also a little bit boring. No, wait. Maybe boring isn’t the right word. What’s the word I’m wanting here? Lonely. That’s it. It was a little bit lonely.”

“I guess it's hard for people who are so used to things the way they are - even if they're bad - to change. 'Cause they kind of give up. And when they do, everybody kind of loses.”