“Tell me what you'll do if you're captured by the coyotes... Well, that might work, but does your mother live near here?”

“You're going to stay here. You're going to get strong. And then, when your mind is as empty as your glass, you'll know what to do.”

“So then you do feel for me." His face looked pained. "Tell me you love me in the same way that I love you, and maybe that will provide some relief to hang on to when you're not here. Tell me that you'll be tortured because you're not with me, and that you'll spend hours trying to think of what you could have done differently. Tell me you'll see my face when you close your eyes at night and that i'll haunt you until morning. Tell me," he said, his voice louder now. His eyes flashing, hot and angry."I can't do that," I whispered.”

“Well, while I'm here I'll do the work — and what's the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.”

“You keep waiting for the moral of your life to become obvious, but it never does. Work, work, work: No moral. No plot. No eureka! Just production schedules and days. You might as well be living inside a photocopier. Your lives are all they're ever going to be.”

“People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, they'll keep writing and you'll have hanged yourself.”