“How long can a man live on the outside before he loses his ability to love? How long before there's no more hope?”

“How long does a building stand before it falls?How long does a contract last? How long will brothersshare the inheritance before they quarrel?How long does hatred, for that matter, last?Time after time the river has risen and flooded.The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute.How long is the eye able to look at the sun?From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.”

“A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts.”

“How long can we maintain? I wonder. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection..”

“There's only so long you can be at the zoo before it gets old.”

“And how to stop the rot? How to salvage something from time's passage? How long before the map makers decide to erase this structure completely? Before it becomes a nameless ruin? And then a mere pile of stones? Mossed over. Forgotten. How long before they lift its name from their charts and from our collective memory? The only thing I can do is fill the place with music.”