“He said my dream doesn't mean I am crazy, only that I should probably love myself a little better, like most people.”

“Now I see that I will never find the lightUnless, like the candle, I am my own fuel,Consuming myself.”

“It may be the coldest day ofThe year, what does he think ofThat? I mean, what do I? And if I do,Perhaps I am myself again.”

“I've had enough of this life of waiting for someone's permission.”

“Our hearts are bound together,' he said, 'and I am free to decide who I love. And what I want. Nothing - not the pressure of my family, or what anyone else thinks - matters.”

“Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that. I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all--except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him. They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then.”

“Now I am quietly waiting forthe catastrophe of my personalityto seem beautiful again,and interesting, and modern.The country is grey andbrown and white in trees,snows and skies of laughteralways diminishing, less funnynot just darker, not just grey.It may be the coldest day ofthe year, what does he think ofthat? I mean, what do I? And if I do,perhaps I am myself again.”