“out of the arms...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherI have been saved from dying on the crossby a lady who smokes potwrites songs and stories,and is much kinder than the last,much much kinder,and the sex is just as good or better.it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn'tworkas all lovefinallydoesn't work...it is much more pleasant to make lovealong the shore in Del Marin room 42, and afterwardssitting up in beddrinking good wine, talking and touchingsmokinglistening to the waves...I have died too many timesbelieving and waiting, waitingin a roomstaring at a cracked ceilingwaiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound...going wild insidewhile she danced with strangers in nightclubs...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherit's not pleasant to die on the cross,it's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in the dark.”

“But how much more pleasant was the sensation of being a missile without provenance or target, caught up in a tumult of non-Newtonian motion. So pleasant that pleasant was not the word.”

“Optimist" is a word which here refers to a person, such as Phil, who thinks hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. For instance, if an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!”

“Because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.”

“If you are honest with yourself, your life will be so much more pleasant.”

“It wasn't too much, to take a frail figure into one's arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone's arms - could there be anything more forgiving? Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this.”