“I was ambitious and desperate to direct my first film, so I capitulated and blew it. Never again. Never fucking again.”

“My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”

“This was the first time in my life that so many things would never happen again.”

“My skin will never work like that again, so aware of the other person that I'm unsure where she ends and I begin. Never again. Never again will my skin be a thing that can so perfectly communicate; in losing my skin to the fire, I also lost the opportunity to make it disappear with another person.”

“The way he looked at me, I felt as though he saw through my body and directly into my soul. No one had ever made me feel like that before. Then again, I had never met someone so electrically good-looking, but there's a first time for everything.”

“You write your first novel with the desperation of the damned. You're afraid that you'll never write anything else, ever again.”