“My father used to say, 'If you want to know the artist, look at the art'. He was usually talking about Stanley Matthews or Don Bradman when he said it.”

“Your father," Luke said, "what did he say to you when you saw him? What did he promise you?""Oh, you know. The usual. A lifetime's supply of Knicks tickets.”

“People assume that artists must talk about art and beauty and the sublime whenever we get together, but no, we usually talk about money.”

“Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.”

“Now I know my father was a certified man of God, but at a fairly young age, I decided that when it came to my destiny, he did not know what he was talking about.”

“Our conversation starts out pretty normal. Matthew does most of the talking, as usual. He tells me about Wesley. He tells me everything. Well, almost everything. I was lucky enough to stop him before he got into the explicit details. Wesley also helped by nudging him with his shoulder. He even covered Matthew's mouth when the conversation took a sudden turn because the word package was used. Yeah, the conversation went from sweet and romantic to soft-core porn in about two seconds.”