“I want to be the very best competitor I can be. The Bible says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Ecclesiastes 9:10).”

“How can you read and talk at the same time?” I asked.“Well, I usually can’t, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging.”

“Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.”

“What can I do my friends, if I do not know?I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Muslim nor Hindu. What can I do? What can I do?Not of the East, nor of the West, Nor of the land, nor of the sea,Not of nature's essence, nor of circling heavens. What could I be?”

“If you go to the Rijksmuseum, which I really wanted to do- but who are we kidding, neither of us can walk through a museum. But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left. If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You'd see Jesus on the cross, and you'd see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you'd see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Nor. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there's no gory in illness. there is no meaning to it. There is no honour of dying of”

“Thank you," I say, pounding his back probably too hard. "That was the best damned passenger-seat driving I've ever seen in my life." He pats my uninjured cheek with his greasy hand. "I did it to save myself, not you," he says. "Believe me when I say that you did not once cross my mind. " I laugh. "Nor you mine," I say.”

“High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.”