“You are softening toward the young rascal because he is ill, and because he says he likes cats.""It is an engaging quality, Emerson.""That depends," said Emerson darkly, "on how he likes them.”

“He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.”

“He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death]”

“How do you know you're not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: 'I like strong women.' If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because 'I like strong women' is code for: 'I hate strong women.”

“If you take a man by surprise, and behave with sufficient arrogance, he will generally do what you ask.-Emerson”

“And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking--how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe--Pasquale Tursi said, only, "Yes.”