“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

“There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights ofthe cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of lights, on and on.All those people. What are they doing? What are they thinking? We're allgoing to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.”

“We need each other. All of us. We cannot be alone.”

“How could you love us being together?" he asked me "We are nothing alike and we are not meant for each other and we drive each other crazy, you love that? How can you love that?" So I told him "I know that we're not meant for each other, that we drive each other crazy, and that we are so different. But that's us. That's what we have; a wild nonsense. We are not good together, but together we are bad for each other. I love us together this way just like this. Because even if it's no good, it's what we have! It's us.”

“As far as all of our identities are dependent on how other people imagine us we are all making ourselves and each other up all the time”

“We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be.”