“And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world.”

“New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments--constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther. And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall.”

“O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?”

“I found cause to wonder upon what ground the English accuse Americans of corrupting the language by introducing slang words. I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks' stay in London than in my whole "tenderloin" life in New York. But I suppose the English feel that the language is theirs, and that they may do with it as they please without at the same time allowing that privilege to others.”

“It makes you very cool," he said, taking big, jumping steps to get in front of me. "CNN would interview you, for sure. Daughter of Flobie! But don't worry. I'll keep them back!”

“Fortunately, there is more to life than death. There is for one thing, fiction. A thousand thousand characters to be sent marching out into the world to divert time from its forward gallop to the terrible horizon.”

“One question," I said. "Did you tell me all that because you think I'm going to die?""No," he said. "It's because you're doing something brave, and I felt I should too.""I'll take that as a yes," I said.”