“No mat­ter how much I try and hide this, bit by bit, I start to fall apart.”

“It does not mat­ter. The joke is we all have the same punch line.”

“I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune... but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. I hope, therefore I am.”

“Where I'm at is a big Episcopal church in downtown Newark, New Jersey, sitting in the dark while I try to rescue the doomed bits and pieces of life, in the hope that a mere story can become Noah's Ark and deliver all the living things of the past to a bright and glorious immortality?”

“Everything is still falling apart.”

“Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.”

“Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.”