“The dead can be even more frustrating to deal with than are many of the living, which is astonishing when you consider it's the living who run the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

“It was one of those rare times when remembering the dead was more inmportant than tending to the needs of the living.”

“Night has patterns that can be readless by the living than by the dead.”

“I possess everyone who sleeps in the motor court, roam their memories, and embed recurrent nightmares that will destroy their sleep for weeks after I’ve departed them.”“I’d prefer a free continental breakfast.”

“It's so damn hard to bloom... to change. Even when you want to change, want it more than anything in the world, it's hard. Desire to change isn't enough. Or desperation. Couldn't be done without...love,”

“Now he must deal with the security system, which has recorded everything that he's done. A video camera is mounted over the front door and focused on the cashiers' counter. Edgler Foreman Vess has no desire to see himself on television news. Living with intensity is virtually impossible when one is in prison.”

“The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.”