“Rain fell in great sheets, hitting the pavement hard enough to send up a blattering, dirty mist. A small man stood on the corner, under the only working streetlamp, and studied the street.”

“From the cab stepped a tall old man. Black raincoat and hat and a battered valise. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless, staring at the house. The cab pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-sixty Street. Kinderman quickly pulled out to follow. As he turned the corner, he noticed that the tall old man hadn't moved but was standing under the streetlight glow, in mist, like a melancholy traveler frozen in time.”

“He was dropped under a streetlamp, the only person left on the bus. A patch of mauled light. Gritty pavement, scarred with a million cigarette burns. Weeds and spit and oil. Place like this, the only glitter was the knife just before it sank in. Place like this, there wasn't any gold.”

“in a livid wet dress, under the tumbling mist... had run ecstatically up that ridge above Moulinet to be felled there by a thunderbolt.”

“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.”

“I have stood in the midnight rain under dizzying lights by the street corners stark of any occurrence, obscured by the darkness. I have composed stupid ballads. I have slept through my days. I have waited motionless in my room. I have wept. And I made no sound.–Exit Orpheus”