“But then again maybe "I will" is nicer. It has a future in it.”

“Maybe when you’re dead you can crawl inside other people and make them nicer than they were before.”

“A woman has to look good, but a man—a little bit nicer looking than a monkey is enough.”

“Maybe Ruth thought we'd be spending hours talking about my future; maybe she thought she'd have a big influence on whether or not I changed my mind.But I kept a certain distance from her, just as I did from Tommy. We didn't really talk properly again at the Cottages, and before I knew it, I was saying my goodbyes”

“The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.”

“I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again ... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul”