“She'd half loved men, and they'd half failed her.”

“She didn't tell me how to live, and I didn't tell her how to die. We let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Fucking, drinking, smoking, loving, living, freebasing, spending, laughing, crying, working, falling apart, kissing, writing, blacking out.”

“New Year's Eve. It's a promise of a night. Single, married or widowed, in love, loveless or lovelorn, we all leave our apartments and pick through snow in high heels, or descend subway stairs in tuxedos, lured to wherever we're going--whether we know it or not, would deny it or not--by the kiss of a stranger.”

“So many land mines in this new territory called adulthood. Talent has a window. Freedom sometimes becomes a trap. We may die before we finish our dreams. Acutally, that we die is a pretty big surprise by itself. We can't spend innocence without accounting. Relationships are contracts. We partner not just for love but because we become too weak to make it alone.”

“I now doubted myself. Innocencce was finite and could not be regenerated. Like spinal fluid. I knew this because I had run out.”

“Outside my window, truckers trucked, hookers fucked, cops cruised, kids smoked, elders yelled, invalids slept, spouses fought, lovers kissed, while I watched a pussycat playing with stars in a black room.”