“It had never occurred to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected.”

“He had a theory about it. It happened, and re-happened, because it was a city uninterested in history. Strange things occurred precisely because there was no necessary regard for the past. The city lived in a sort of everyday present. It had no need to believe in itself as a London, or an Athens, or even a signifier of the New World, like a Sydney, or a Los Angeles. No, the city couldn't care less about where it stood. He had seen a t-shirt once that said: New York F***in City. As of it were the only place that ever existed and the only one that ever would.”

“I had enough electricity in my booty to jump-start the whole of New York City.”

“The core reason for it all was beauty. Walking was a divine delight. Everything was rewritten when he was up in the air. New things were possible with the human form. It went beyond equilibrium. He felt for a moment uncreated. Another kind of awake.”

“The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself.”

“She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing its yours.”

“He realized that he had thought only about the first step, never imagined the last.”