“Anyone who said power was not addictive had never really experienced it.”

“She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.”

“I never met an addict who came from a nice home . I've met addicts that came from families that had money and nice houses. But never from a nice home.”

“Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.”

“Then there are the addicts, the hunger addicts, the rage addicts, the poverty addicts , and power addicts, and the pure addicts who are addicted not to substances but to the oblivion and the tenderness the substances engender. An addict, if you don't mind me saying so, is like a saint. What is a saint but someone who has cut himself off, voluntarily, from the world's traffic and currency.”

“I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.”